Debates of Dec. 4th, 1995

Quilt Making

[John Richardson, Liberal, Perth—Wellington—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about the fascinating art of quilt making.

Quilt making and the preservation of quilts are an integral part of our history. The art of quilt making reflects Canada's rural beginnings, and its continued popularity is living proof of the vitality and the art of this form.

Today quilt shows are just as popular as they were generations ago. Currently I am seeking Parliament's approval to proclaim the fourth week of every May as national quilters week. Such a proclamation will give these committed and tireless artisans the recognition they deserve.

I ask all members of Parliament to lend their support to this worthwhile effort.

[The Speaker]

I would say that that request was just a stitch in time.

Unemployment Insurance Reform

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, the Minister of Human Resources Development finally unveiled his unemployment insurance reform, which will make it increasingly difficult for the unemployed to access the system. The reform provides that eligibility levels will be considerably higher and that those frequently out of work will be penalized, so that the first victims of these cuts will be young people, women and seasonal workers. The federal government is cutting $2 billion from the program.

Will the minister finally acknowledge that he waited so long to table his reform in order to avoid having Quebecers know before the referendum that they would get hit with two thirds of the UI cuts, that is, about $640 million?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not have his facts straight.

The reality is that Quebec is affected no differently than the other provinces. The full mature year after the transition takes place, the next impact on the province of Quebec would be 7 per cent of benefits because a large proportion of the money we are saving is being reinvested to ensure that people in Quebec can go back to work.

That is what I do not think the hon. member fully understands. The whole purpose of the reform is to give people the opportunity, the resources and the support to be re-employed. It is about jobs. It is about work. It is about employment and the way in which governments can work together to develop partnerships to help people attain those very important objectives.

That is what it is all about and that is where the money is going. It is going to shift us from a program that previously provided a simple income benefit program. However because it is no longer relevant to the much tougher world of work we live in, we are now giving people a better ability to meet the kinds of demands and to do what they really want to do, which is to get a job.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister cannot deny the terrible effect the cuts in his reform will have on young people, women and seasonal workers, especially. Everyone is affected, but they are more so.

The minister cannot deny it, and I would ask him this: Since the federal government is using the surplus in the unemployment insurance fund to reduce its enormous debt, are we to understand from the $2 billion cuts announced Friday that, rather than improving its own finances through better management, Ottawa is trying to reduce the deficit on the backs of the unemployed?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, let me again point out some relevant facts. It is quite clear the hon. member has not looked at the report. He does not know what we are proposing.

There will be a substantial extension of coverage under the new proposal for part time workers or people who have multiple jobs. Half a million Canadians will be included in the program where before they received absolutely no coverage at all. A quarter of a million seasonal workers will be able to receive extended benefits beyond what they receive at the present time. There will be the

opportunity for more people to improve their earnings because we are basing it upon a much more realistic test, the test of hours.

To get to the question raised by the hon. member and not the prologue where his facts were wrong, the reality is that the money we are using is first to go into a reserve to stabilize premiums against a further recession. In that way we can ensure that future workers will not be hurt the way workers were in the past recession and we can ensure there is an infusion of money at that point in time. We are reducing the costs for both employees and employers as a result of this measure to stimulate job creation. We are ploughing back $800 million of employment benefits to help people get back to work.

This goes back to the very heart, the goal of what we want to do, which is to ensure that Canadians will have the opportunity to get a good job.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when the minister talks of getting Canadians back to work, we cannot forget that, for more than two years, the government in power has done absolutely nothing to get Canadians back to work, except to cut among the poor and the unemployed. This is what has happened.

The minister cannot deny this. Given that the level of employment in Canada has hardly budged and the enormous cuts he is making to unemployment insurance, will he admit, therefore, that, far from giving Canadians the dignity of work as he calls it, he is hitting them, pushing them towards welfare and condemning them to poverty? Because that is his plan.

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, the poor member really has got himself wound up into the wildest coil of exaggeration I have seen in a long time.

As the member well knows and as he obviously should know, the reality is that since this government has come to power we have created close to 500,000 permanent jobs. The unemployment rate has gone down from over 11 per cent to 9.4 per cent. In Quebec alone, 119,000 new jobs have been created.

As we all know, one of the most important elements of this program is that in addition to helping people adjust to the labour market, buying the opportunity to get the kind of skills they need, they will also be able to generate between 100,000 and 150,000 new incremental jobs, of which 40,000 would be in the province of Quebec. It is worth fighting for 40,000 jobs, which is what we are doing. I wish the hon. member would join in that fight.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. Thanks to the cuts resulting from the February 1994 budget and the present reform, the minister will enjoy a $5 billion surplus by the end of 1996 after requiring workers and employers to pay $6 billion back into the recession fund. This is a very substantial grab. Yet, this surplus will not be set aside but will go into the federal government's current revenue to reduce its deficit by $5 billion.

Are we to understand from its UI reform that the government intends to reduce its deficit not by improving management of government operations but by reducing UI benefits by another $2 billion?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, at the present time the unemployment insurance account is still in a deficit. That deficit was allowed to rise to $6 billion in the last recession because there was no reserve placed against it.

What is even worse is that at the same time the previous government jacked up the premium rates from about $2.05 to almost $3, a 50 per cent increase in premium rates at a time when the economy was going into recession. All that did was make the recession all that much worse.

We should learn from those lessons. We should not put Canadian workers in a position where all of a sudden money is drawn out of the economy when in fact money should be going back into the economy. One of the basic principles of this national program is to be counter-cyclical, to reinvest when times are bad and to put a surplus aside for protection when times are good.

We are learning that lesson. We are setting up a reserve fund so we can stabilize the premiums. In that way when there are problems in the economy we will not have to jack up premiums, we will not have to deficit finance, but we can make sure that we put the money back in the economy to keep jobs for Canadian workers.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, given the size of current surpluses and the maintenance of high premiums, workers will never be able to benefit from this surplus, which will only be used to reduce the deficit.

Since UI premiums and benefits are part of the government's revenue and expenditures, does the minister recognize that his so-called recession reserve is nothing but an accounting fiction and that this UI fund surplus will be used strictly to reduce the federal

deficit, as specified on page 11 of the government's own annual financial report?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, from time to time I have heard the hon. member for Mercier talk about the responsibility of members of Parliament to listen to the grassroots, to listen to people in their own regions.

I would like to quote a very important statement: "In order for unemployment insurance to fully play its role of automatic stabilizer, we feel that it would be advisable to set contribution rates in such a manner as to allow a surplus to accumulate during periods of expansion, thus avoiding the necessity to increase contributions during periods of recession". Was this le Conseil du patronat? No it was the CSN and the CEQ, the two major unions of Quebec which have advocated exactly what we are doing.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the changes to unemployment insurance that the Minister of Human Resources Development announced on Friday will not create a single sustainable job.

The new 7 per cent payroll tax is a full time tax on part time workers and amounts to a massive tax grab. Since tabling his bill the minister and his officials have failed to inform Canadians exactly how much more money the government is getting from this tax grab.

Why will the minister not tell Canadians exactly how much money he is pulling out of the pockets of part time workers?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, frankly the hon. member from Calgary just does not get it.

The member just does not understand the whole point of the reform which is to make sure that for the first time part time workers would get the security protection of the unemployment insurance fund. That is the whole point of the reform. If those workers make less than $2,000 they get the premiums refunded. She still goes not get it.

What has happened is there has been an artificial glass ceiling. Employers have set 15 hours where nobody has the opportunity to get access to maternity benefits, to get job security, to get retraining. As a result they have been sent home. What we are doing is we are opening up the door of opportunity and security for part time workers in Canada.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Some hon. members]

More, more.

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, let me continue.

The new tax will hurt 2.5 million part time workers and their employers. The minister wants us to believe that this tax is revenue neutral. The fact is that the students and working moms targeted by the tax will be forced to pay for months, 910 hours to be exact which accumulates to months, before they can collect and few ever will. This is not a revenue neutral tax. This is a cash windfall of $1.2 billion at the expense of part time workers.

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the hon. member's question, but I suppose I can make up one for the hon. member and then answer it. Seeing she seems to make up most of the facts she uses, I might as well make up the questions that she wants answered.

Let us deal with the part time worker issue, one of the strongest cases that was made to us during the public hearings. I heard the hon. member's leader last week saying that we have to listen to the people. We did. They said that at this time, when there are increasingly more jobs of a part time nature or of a multiple job nature, we have to give people coverage. They did not have coverage. Under the old weekly basis, after 15 hours people were sent home; they were told not to work any more. The whole labour market was distorted as a result, and those people had no security. We have opened up eligibility for over half a million Canadians.

If that person, a student, male, female, or whatever the case may be-

[An hon. member]

A Reformer?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

We may have to look at the charter of rights for that.

[Jan Brown, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is habit forming when we have to respond to the question mark. This is about killing part time jobs.

There is very little evidence that the part timer tax will benefit anyone except the federal coffers. Many businesses are opposed to this scheme. Ultimately, the increased cost to business will kill off the creation of part time jobs and generate huge tax revenues. In fact we expect this tax will generate over $1 billion.

How can the minister justify this $1 billion tax grab at the expense of part time workers?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member should know, the cost reductions we have built into the program amount to $1.3 billion for small business employees and employers. That has a very strong job stimulating effect.

Second, we have also built in a rebate for small business. If there is an increase in premiums they will receive a 50 per cent rebate. Obviously the hon. member did not know that either.

Third, to repeat, if a worker, up to $2,000 of income, does not want to claim their eligibility, they have a right to a full $2,000 refund on their taxes.

It seems very clear. Now that we have a question from the hon. member, we understand that the question is not based upon anything she has read in our report.

Manpower Training

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development.

In June 1994, the federal government offered to transfer budgets for several manpower training programs to the Government of Quebec. Daniel Johnson rejected the proposal out of hand, calling it a bargain basement agreement. Ottawa is now offering to give assistance the unemployed directly.

Will the minister admit that his reform proposal does not even go as far as the offer made in June 1994, in that the plan is no longer to transfer budgets to the Government of Quebec but to send cheques to the unemployed directly? Does he recognize that the federal government is not, in fact, withdrawing from the area of manpower?

[Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development and Minister of Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I would have expected that surely by this time the hon. member would have caught on that in fact we are going much further than the previous offer.

The Prime Minister over a week ago said that we are withdrawing from the area of education and training. In fact we have introduced in the legislation that there would be no direct involvement in terms of a voucher unless there was provincial consent.

Furthermore, we have clearly put on the table the entire global amount of expenditures we make, which in the province of Quebec right now is about $500 million or $600 million, plus the savings that will be generated, which will be another $240 million, to determine how we could work out a partnership with them. If they have delivery mechanisms that suit the criteria for the clients we must serve, we are quite prepared to use those delivery mechanisms. We can sit down to work out how we can eliminate duplication and overlap in these areas. We can work out common employment plans at the community level. We can discuss how we can share resources.

This is a real attempt to find a new partnership for employment with every province and help people get back to work.