Mr. Speaker, the economic region of the Montérégie is plagued with an unemployment rate that reached 11 per cent during the first quarter of this year, according to Statistics Canada. What would be the impact of Bill C-17 on the unemployment rate? That is what we have to ask ourselves to understand fully why the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance is an insult to all citizens.
The Martin budget is based on bad logic. For example, it establishes a link between the problems related to economic recovery and the labour market, employers and businesspeople, and the contributions which help fund the unemployment insurance system. Furthermore, since the beginning of the 1990s, unemployment insurance has become a program which is supposed to be self-financing. With Bill C-17, the government concludes that we have to bring back the rate of unemployment insurance premiums to 3 per cent. By doing so, they think that it will contribute 125 million dollars towards economic growth and job creation-as shown in Table II of the Budget Speech-and save 725 million dollars just in 1994-95-as it has been written in the backgrounder on the proposed changes to the unemployment insurance program.
Did the government ask itself what contribution it might have done if it had reconsidered other measures? We still do not know why the GST applies to essential commodities and not to stock exchange transactions. What we do know however is that the financing of unemployment insurance has been turned back
twenty years. This program is more and more restrictive and out of reach.
The government is again making the mistake of going after the unemployed instead of unemployment, as if those people had chosen to be without a job. The benefit period for new claimants will be reduced. There is another measure which will transfer to the provinces the cost of the government's inability to strengthen the economy. Where do the unemployed go when they have used up all their benefits and still have no job? They join the ranks of those who are forced to live on welfare. And do not think that these people do not want to work because they do!
The Chrétien government was happy with the last Statistics Canada unemployment figures. However, it overlooked the number of people who have lost hope and have stopped looking for jobs. It also overlooked the figures showing an increase in the number of welfare applications.
Another measure of retaliation against the unemployed is the minimum requirements for benefit entitlement which have been increased from 10 to 12 weeks of insurable employment. The government is really striving to reduce the total number of claimants on the books. Can such a measure help solve the employment problem? Certainly not. The resulting savings will cost a fortune. The Liberal government is only giving us the impression it did something; in reality, it has done nothing at all.
The government said that it wanted to encourage small business by increasing consumer demand. Do you think that the unemployed will be able to contribute to this economic recovery effort when their payments are being reduced to 55 per cent of their average insurable earnings? Even at 60 per cent, for low income earners with children or other dependants such as an elderly parent, people are still below the subsistence level.
The government has made commitments that it is not keeping. Yet, it would be possible to straighten up public finances and the deficit, but it would take a major shake up with a view to establishing a really equitable fiscal policy. According to some experts, it would be possible to find $46.1 billion in additional revenues for the Treasury through fiscal restructuring only, without touching social programs, without attacking the poor who try desperately to make ends meet.
Seventeen separate measures have been identified by economist Léo-Paul Lauzon, from sources as diverse as the Auditor General of Canada, Yves Séguin, Ernst Young, the Liberal Party of Canada, the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Quebecois and the Department of Finance. Among them, the two most important are the closing of fiscal loopholes which would bring $10 billion to the treasury, and the creation of a new tax on securities which would bring in another $10 billion.
But the government did not dare touch anything which could have displeased its rich friends. However, it did not hesitate to do so when it came to the unemployed. That is the main reproach we can direct to the government, and Bill C-17 proves once again the public was misled by enticing election promises.
In the economic region of the Montérégie, an unemployed person coming to an employment centre with 15 weeks of work to his or her credit would currently be entitled to UI benefits for 30 weeks. After Bill C-17 is passed, the same person will be eligible for only 21 weeks of benefits. That is what the Chrétien government just offered. That is their initiative for economic growth and job creation. The government just cut nine weeks of benefits for this unemployed worker.
Do the government realize what they are doing? What they are saying by this is that their management of social problems is a complete failure. They are saying to Canadians that they would be better off if this responsibility was transferred to their provinces. It is proving the Quebec sovereignists right. Should we go as far as to thank the government for doing us this favor?