Mr. Speaker, that is correct.
My wife is often astonished at how quickly and how frequently the schedule changes for a parliamentarian. This is an example of that. When I rose to speak an hour ago I said I would speaking for the full 20 minutes and now it is 10 minutes. I happy to comply and adjust my schedule again.
Before question period I was saying that the bill was a Robin Hood response to the problem we have with the UI system. In 1983 the UI system cost $9 billion to employers and employees across Canada. Today it costs $17 billion. The growth in the cost of this program has represented a tax on jobs in Canada and we have to deal with it.
People in my riding tell me that it has been misused in many ways and it is time to deal with it. But how do we deal with it? And why am I calling it a Robin Hood response? Because we are dealing with this problem of reducing the cost of the program by reducing benefits for the well off who have been breaking the system for a while and increasing benefits to the poor. The low-income people who have dependants will get up to 80 per cent, rather than 55 per cent of their previous income under this system. So it is an important step forward and we are maintaining the program as much as possible in a very solid way for those in the middle. That is a very important point.
Finally, I want to mention the issue of involuntary part-time workers. I have been involved in the food bank movement in the Halifax area, as people in my riding would know. One thing we always complained about for low-income people is the growing number of people who have to work part time because they could not find full-time work. One reason for that has been the incentive provided in part by the UI system to employers to only hire part-time workers, who would work less than 15 hours a week so they would not have to pay these UI benefits, for example.
By moving to an hourly based system where every hour counts and every hour has premiums paid on it, it means that people who are working part time will qualify for UI and the incentive for employers to hire only part time will no longer be there. These are important and positive points about this employment insurance program.
I urge all members of the House to vote against this Bloc motion.