Mr. Speaker, as I have only just begun to prepare this speech, I will rely on you to stop me if I run over my time.
While Bill C-17 contains parts which are acceptable to me, I would have preferred that the government had introduced separate bills for each act for which it is suggesting changes. In particular, I would have preferred the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act to be a separate bill.
As we know the government's budget proposed changes to the unemployment insurance program. We support the direction of the changes, the reduction in benefits, the increases in the qualifying period and the reduction in the employer premiums. However we in the Reform Party feel that the government did not go far enough.
The proposed changes or amendments could have gone much further. This is a good time to state that the Reform Party supports the return of unemployment insurance to its original function, an employer-employee funded and administered program to provide temporary income in the event of unexpected job loss.
Is that not the purpose of such a program? Should it not be a self-sustainable program? Is it supposed to serve a purpose? Yes, it is supposed to serve a purpose; unexpected job loss, unplanned job loss. Yet in Canada we have seasonal workers who go on unemployment every year like clock work.
If the Canadian economy were flush, if it were abundant in a surplus of tax dollars unused and needing or waiting for a recipient, okay, great. Then perhaps we could understand this abuse of our tax dollars. We all know that the premiums paid through the unemployment insurance plan do not even begin to cover the cost of our current program.
However the program is not working as it was set out to work, as a sincere and caring effort to help those in need who through perhaps no fault of their own were suddenly without a job and therefore income. Those people pay into the unemployment insurance plan in good faith, hoping it is there for them if they ever need it.
The unemployment insurance act was first passed in 1940 and has been amended many times. When it began in 1941 UI was limited to full time wage earners. Part time workers as well as salaried employees with high pay and good job security were excluded. The subsequent history of the plan has been its step by step expansion to include high risk seasonal workers as well as low risk workers, civil servants and teachers. About 90 per cent of Canadian workers are now included although MPs and senators have not chosen to include themselves, yet.
Particularly noteworthy were the reforms undertaken by the Liberal government in 1971 when Bryce Mackasey was the responsible minister. Mr. Mackasey made UI much more generous and introduced regionally extended and maternity benefits.
Subsequent studies and reforms have tried to undo the damage but progress has been limited. The Conservative government appointed the Forget commission in 1985 but did not have the courage to act upon its excellent report. The changes made by the Tories in 1990, higher contributions, stiffer conditions for eligibility and directing some benefits to job training were in the right direction but far from sufficient.
How should unemployment insurance be reformed?
Decades of politically inspired manipulation have produced grave defects in the Canadian unemployment insurance program and system. It is discriminatory. The combination of regional entrance requirements and regionally extended benefits means that claimants are treated more generously in regions of the country where the unemployment rate is higher.
The result is unfair inequality between individuals. Simply by living in a certain place, one person may be entitled to far greater UI benefits than another even though both have contributed equally to the plan.
It increases unemployment. After the Liberals reformed UI in 1971, the Canadian plan became the most generous in the world. Overly generous benefits create what economists call induced unemployment. In plain English, people are tempted to slow down their job search to take maximum advantage of their benefits.
It creates despondency and dependency, for one certainly brings on the other. When one can work 10 weeks and collect UI benefits for 40 weeks there is little incentive to switch to a more stable employment. Extending UI to fishermen and other seasonal workers has had the perverse effect of encouraging workers to remain in declining industries. It has become an inefficient income support plan rather than social insurance.
Politicians have loaded so many special features on to the UI, regional preference, coverage of seasonal workers, benefits for pregnancy, child birth and adoption and so on, that the original purpose of providing temporary income in case of unforeseeable and unintentional job loss has been lost.
These and other problems of UI have been pointed out in several studies, most notably the one I have just mentioned, the Forget commission appointed by the Conservatives in 1985 when they first came to power. The Conservatives lacked the courage to do what all impartial students of UI agree needs to be done; namely, reform the system so that it treats people equally, bring benefits into line with those paid in other countries and stop using UI to subsidize seasonal industries. Rather, stand up to the entrenched special interests.
The Tories conveniently decided to forget Forget. The Reform policy, in contrast, is to make UI a sensible, sustainable program of social insurance. As with all social programs, reform will be undertaken prudently with due regard to the expectations that people have been led to develop. It would be desirable to phase in reform of UI at a high point of the business cycle when unemployment is relatively low.
To finish and sum up, the Reform Party will return unemployment insurance to its original and basically sound purpose of providing temporary income in case of unexpected job loss.