Madam Speaker, clearly the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over unemployment insurance. Much of what we do in the labour market area is based on that responsibility: for example, employment services, counselling, training and labour mobility programs.
Specifically our employment services and the programs and services flowing from these are adjuncts to the UI program. They go hand in hand with UI to reduce costs primarily by getting claimants off UI as quickly as possible and keeping them off UI as long as possible.
Continued federal intervention in this area is a legitimate exercise of jurisdiction. Virtually every jurisdiction in the world which has an unemployment insurance program has associated with it an unemployment service as well as other active programming to help the unemployed return to gainful employment quickly. Federal interventions in the labour market help people avoid claiming UI either in the short term or the long term and reduce the costs of UI by shortening the duration of claims either in the short term or the long term. This applies regardless of
whether funding is channelled through the UI account directly or whether these programs are funded by tax dollars.
Nevertheless all government have agreed that we need to find ways to co-operate more in order to provide better service to clients, to increase efficiency and to eliminate any duplication that may exist.
The federal government is actively pursuing agreements to achieve this end even while the reform of social security is under way. Any major changes in labour market roles and responsibilities of governments will be based on the outcome of the comprehensive social security review.