Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised some very useful and important questions and I would like to provide him with a detailed response. I hope hon. members will listen.
In terms of the question being addressed earlier about part time workers, we estimate that 1.3 million people who have a minor work attachment will now be eligible for a total refund of all premiums paid. That includes 900,000 people who presently contribute benefits but receive no claim or eligibility because they do not have enough weeks.
Those 900,000 people will now be able to receive a full refund on their benefits. In fact, 32 per cent fewer people will be paying benefits into the new employment insurance system than in the old system. Overall, part time and low income workers will be paying $14 million less in premiums in the new system.
Those are hard figures. More people are covered but if they do not receive their full eligibility they get a refund of all their premiums, which means a $14 million saving in premiums for part time workers.
I will deal with the second question the hon. member raised regarding the new entrance requirements for new entrants. I will quote to him because he has quoted back to me several times, with great support, the recommendations of the seasonal task force. The working group told us we should do something about eligibility to stop young people from leaving school to take advantage of the short term benefits of UI to the detriment of their future career prospects.
That was a direct recommendation of the seasonal workers task force. It talked with seasonal worker groups right across Canada.
I recommend the hon. member actually read the legislation rather than listening to his colleague, the member for Mercier.
The new entrance requirement is only a first time requirement. In the second year, if they have worked 490 hours in the previous year, the entrance requirement goes down to the regular number of hours. In other words, if they simply get 490 hours in the first year they are not required to do 900 hours in the next year, as the hon. member asserts. They go down to the regular 420 required hours. I hope that provides some clarification.
I will now come to a very important point. The hon. member made a very good case about the need to help change economies in parts of rural Canada, to help people redevelop new economies, recognizing there are problems.
One of the major elements in the new program is a $300 million transition jobs fund that can be used for the investment in these areas to help small businesses with capital formation, to start new enterprises. It can used in terms of new training programs, new schools in those areas, if that is the choice of people in those areas. Investments can go into new infrastructure to attract new industry.
I recall a discussion I had with people in Atlantic Canada. They were saying there was an enormous opportunity now with the new export potential for developing food processing, food value added manufacturing. They new substantial new sewage treatment plants, new water facilities. This new jobs funds will do that.
I suggest to the hon. member that one of the responsibilities for him as a Member of Parliament is not to rely on the old system because he recognizes, as well as everyone else does, it has been a deterrent to jobs. It has stood in the way of developing new enterprise.
Concerning the new methods we are bringing in, the new employment benefits, $800 million in employment benefits, creating over 40,000 jobs in Quebec at this time, plus the infusion of a new investment fund to start helping those regions to make changes, to adapt, to invest, to create new industries, surely if the hon. member is deeply concerned about people in his own riding would not object to having a new economic development fund to help create jobs and new enterprises in his area. That is what the reform is about, to assist people in that transition and that adaptation to a different kind of economy.
We also do it over a period of time. We are not asking people to go cold turkey into this. We are saying there is a five-year transition. Also in the legislation is a clear requirement for monitoring the impacts, the results, the initiatives which will be tabled in Parliament and will be fully transparent. We will be able to ask in Parliament in 1998 what has happened, what adjustments have to be made, if they have to be made, and what kind of other tools can be used.
This will be an opportunity for members of Parliament to engage in a very clear evaluation of what works and what does not work, to share information and to be part of a process of re-evaluation and monitoring. We are being very open and transparent and clear about it.
Rather than engaging in the wild hyperbole I heard from his colleague earlier this morning, we are putting the onus on the hon. member and others to say let us get the real facts.
Let us get down to what is really going to happen. Let us use these new tools for employment. Let us use the new investment fund. Let us use the new opportunities to extend benefits to part time workers. Let us use the opportunity to extend employment benefits to people who have exhausted their old UI benefits, who want to get back to work but have no assistance right now.
He knows that in Quebec the provincial government has cut off major support for people to get back to work. We are bringing them back in because we recognize that people who have exhausted benefits have as much a desire to go back to work than anybody else.
We are now giving them the opportunity to start their own business, to be able to use a wage supplement with employers to have an income supplement, to have a training voucher if the province agrees, and I hope they will so that we can help people get upgraded.
Employment benefits such as having a job corps in their area, doing reforestation projects, building new infrastructure projects are now available to the hon. member's riding as they are to people across this country.
For the life of me, I find it hard to understand why someone who expresses a concern about jobs for his constituents totally rejects the opportunity of new investment, for new employment benefits, to extend benefits to those who have exhausted theirs, to provide a supplement for families to bring up their incomes, to provide an extension of coverage for part time workers.
All those things are part of the new package. I would think the hon. member would be applauding, supporting and working with us to make sure that the full benefits of all the programs are shared by members of his riding.