Mr. Speaker, as I begin my speech, and considering previous comments, perhaps it would be wise to repeat the text of the motion before the House today. The hon. member for Mercier moved:
That this House denounce the government for its massive cuts to the unemployment insurance system that limit access to the program and hit young people, women, seasonal workers and immigrants hard.
The word Quebec does not appear in this motion. The motion clearly includes all Quebecers and Canadians, especially the people in the Maritimes, and I will get back to that in a moment.
First, I also want to say that my comments today also reflect the results of consultations I have conducted since last Friday in the form of a series of conferences, including three telephone conferences, mostly with people from my riding in the Gaspé. There is a consensus that emerges from these consultations which, in addition to the unions and workers, included employers, members of the Chambers of Commerce and people from all walks of life.
Several aspects of the reform proposal have their merits. For instance, the fact that low-income families will have a chance to get higher benefits. However, there are major aspects that need changing, and they are part of the consensus I will share with you.
First, the requirement of 910 hours of work for first-time contributors to the unemployment insurance plan. Previously, to be eligible, the maximum requirement for a first-time contributor was 20 weeks, 15 hours per week, which adds up to 300 hours.
Applying the same principle to these proposals, the government could have said 700 hours, the maximum for regions where the unemployment rate is not as high. But that is not what they did. They set the maximum at 910 hours, to be eligible for the plan.
This means that someone who works 35 hours a week will have to work 26 weeks full time to be eligible, and this means in one year. If the following year you are back to square one, this means, as it says in our motion, young people and women-because in most cases women or young people who enter the labour market will be hit hard by this measure-seasonal workers, plus those who arrive on the labour market and immigrants getting their first job in Canada will all be affected.
What was the rationale for setting this number of hours? How could Liberal members, elected on a platform that stressed jobs, have done that? The best way to get someone a job is to give him an incentive to work. The proposed system will ensure that people who have worked 600, 700 or 800 hours will have to go on welfare as a matter of course. That is not a big incentive to work.
I think something should have been included to give people a taste for better benefits, something worthwhile. So, in addition to not providing any job creation program with the choices it made, and not proposing a way to transform regional economies, the government is waving a stick and telling workers they will have to work 910 hours; that is the way it will get them working longer. But first there have to be jobs.
I think our motion constructively criticizes this position, and the government will have to fix up its requirement of 910 hours. This is the consensus of the people in a region such as eastern Quebec. Why? Because it will lead to an exodus of young people as well. It will swell the numbers of young people who have been leaving over the past 10 or 15 years.
If somebody works 12 thirty-five hour weeks, he will have 700 hours. He will be short 210 hours, but there is no work in his region. Where is he going to find work? He will have to move to a major centre. This will reduce the regional economy in a number of sectors.
This measure severely punishes the regions, it is backward looking and must be withdrawn.
Another point we agree on is the need to eliminate the penalty against seasonal workers. Give me one reason why employment in a seasonal industry, such as forestry, fishing or tourism, should result in punishment for the worker whose benefits will be reduced according to his use of the unemployment insurance plan?
Why is it this way when it is not the case for workers in an industry that is not seasonal? This, to me, is totally unacceptable. I see it as rather an insult to Canada's regions as well, although their development of seasonal industry has been praised. Their contribution to the Canadian economy is readily accepted, and then, suddenly, the rules are changed and the people penalized and no job creation adjustment program is provided.
This leaves a group of very perplexed members, including the Liberal members for the maritimes, members such as those from St. John's East, Annapolis Valley-Hants, Madawaska-Victoria, Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec, all those who come from ridings hit hard by this policy, which offers no remedy to change the situation. I am willing to bet that, when the policy is reviewed in three years, as provided for in the legislation, it will be assessed as having a disastrous impact because there was no program to revitalize the economy of these regions as they were being penalized.
It will have taken three more years to arrive at the same result. I think we might as well correct the situation right away.
I would like to show you what this will mean for people, not in theory but in real life. Someone who works 12 weeks at an average salary of $500 a week can now receive benefits equal to 55 per cent of his or her salary, or $275.
Under the new program, this person will have to work more hours per week for a longer period in order to qualify for benefits that will drop from $275 a week to $214. We in this House make good money. If our pay cheques were reduced by $50, it would not be so bad, we might be able to live with it. However, if someone's earnings fell from $275 a week to $214, he would wonder how he could feed his children every day of the month.
This kind of money is on a par with welfare. You think this is an incentive to work? This is totally unacceptable and I think that the government should use the time when the bill is in committee to correct these problems. The people affected should be able to tell the government what it means in real life to go from $275 a week to $214, to make the government understand how the bill would affect them in real life.
Especially since, with the reduction in the number of weeks of work required to qualify for UI, the end of the tunnel is welfare. What a great incentive.
My arguments are not only those of someone from eastern Quebec. It concerns everyone in Quebec and Canada. Away from the centre every area will be affected by this and confronted to it. We must all join in condemning this government proposal and in seeing to it that changes are made.
We could assume that, perhaps, the government had no choice but to go about it this way. Perhaps there are financial constraints holding it back. But now this: a lower limit. It makes no sense. In the past, the contribution limit was $42,000 in salary. In the future, the limit will be $39,000. This means that high paid workers, the higher middle class and high paid workers will be contributing-listen to this-$900 million less to the UI fund.
This government claimed to be here to create jobs and help the jobless and those whose skills were not adequate for the labour market to find a job. So what did the government do? In its reform, one of its most regressive initiatives, it lowers the ceiling and, as a result, high paid workers will be contributing $900 million less to the plan.
Do you know where the government will take the missing $900 million? In the pockets of new contributors, those who did not make contributions before, who will now have to work for 910 hours to qualify for benefits but who, while making contributions, if they work ten hours a week during 50 weeks, for a total of 500 hours in the year, will not be refunded fully.
These measures are unacceptable. The UI program may be in need of a reform. It might have been a good idea to set up an employment insurance system. The problem is that the government gave a nice label to a reform that only seeks to make cuts and help reduce the deficit. We are still wondering: if this is the contribution of UI claimants to help reduce the deficit, then what will others be made to contribute? What will be the Royal Bank's contribution, considering it made one billion dollars in profits last year. One billion is more than small change. It is more than the difference between weekly UI benefits of $275 and $214.
The government will have to show that it is also going to get money from those people. In the meantime, it must amend its reform and it must do so urgently. One wonders what prevented the government from introducing, before its reform or at least at the same time, a job creation policy or a regional economic diversification initiative. What prevented the government from showing people that it was going to take positive measures to ensure that regions such as eastern Quebec can get on the new technology express and fully adjust. Why did the current government not take such action?
Why is it bent on targeting only the most vulnerable people? It would have been nice to hear something like: "As regards our young people, we will, in certain regions, set up job creation programs that will allow them to gain a first year of solid experience, to develop their entrepreneurship, and to see if they want to become entrepreneurs".
Let us look at one of the five aspects of job creation dealing with self-employed workers. Basically, it is a very good program permitting someone on UI to start a business. Interesting experiments have been tried under this program. But now, with the 910 hour requirement for first time applicants, a lot of people are going to be left out in the cold. But, if these people were eligible to UI, they could put forward a business plan, start their own business and eventually take some pressure off the unemployment insurance system instead of remaining dependent on it.
It seems to me that this reform lacks originality, initiative, and the new ideas which might have been put on the table and which we would have hoped to see in here, especially after nearly two years of consultation. This is another part of the reform that should scrutinized.
Lat year, I toured Canada with the human resources committee. We went across Canada to find out what kind of reform people wanted. Nowhere did I hear: "The number of hours to become eligible to UI benefits should be increased, seasonal worker benefits should be diminished". Nowhere in Canada did I hear this kind of thing.
However, I was told, for example: "True, there might be some economic problems in certain areas; some things have to be fixed, and we must be given the means to do it". But, do not present us with a fait accompli, as the government is doing.
What kind of effect is this going to have on regional economy? Take the Maritimes, for example; those of you who represent ridings in Atlantic Canada, figure it out: three years from now, all your seasonal workers will be down to 50 per cent only. They speak in terms of 20-week periods. A 20-week period does not mean a reduction of one per cent a year, it means a reduction of one per cent of the salary each time one receives unemployment insurance benefits for 20 weeks. Therefore, in three years, there will be 5 per cent less benefits paid in the regions.
The spinoffs of that will not be job creation but quite the opposite. When jobs are created, another more convenience store opens somewhere and another service job is offered to someone. But these cuts produce the opposite. There will be less money in our economy so there will be less jobs of that kind, there will be more people on welfare, through one program or another, and more people will leave the region.
Instead of breaking the vicious circle that leads to an exodus from the regions, measures like this will tighten it and the result will the opposite of what is expected. This reminds me of the disheartening experience I had last year somewhere in Newfoundland, in an employment centre, where I found a document in a
display case. It was a Human Resources Development Canada document that encouraged people to move, to give up and to go live somewhere else. That does not ensure the future of a country, be it Quebec or Canada. A healthy country is one which capitalizes on its resources and develops them and one which gives recognition to people who work.
If seasonal workers are blamed for the situation their industry is in and for the fact that they cannot work for a longer period, the mid term consequence will be a lack of manpower in part time industries. The tourist industry already has that kind of problem. I can tell you the new plan will only make it worse and will further widen the incredible gap we have between available jobs and unemployed workers who do not have the skills and training to fill those jobs. The hon. member for Mercier has moved the motion before us because of this whole reform.
The government, through massive UI cuts, limits access to the program and sets goals that are the very opposite of those we should have in a society such as ours and our society should be judged by, that is the best use possible of its human resources.
The present Liberal government perpetuates the ways of the previous government it ousted. People voted for change, but the government has fallen back into the same old ways. It is high time you woke up, and swept out the bureaucrats that come up with such proposals for cabinet. You have to get rid of them, because the current government will be judged not necessarily on the way the richer people are allowed to prosper and the more talented are allowed to perform, but rather on the way it ensures that society reaches its full potential, that all Canadians can make a useful contribution and be proud of what they are doing in building something worthwhile together.
If you continue to penalize the people in this way, you will achieve the exact opposite of what you are looking for.
I challenge the government to let the Standing Committee on Human Resource Development travel to Atlantic Canada and throughout Canada, even to the large urban areas, to talk to the people and realize that seasonal workers are not the only ones who will be affected by the decrease in benefits. The government has now decided to clip the wings of the workers who in the 20 to 30 year age group and who have not had the opportunities that we have had, and that is totally unacceptable.
So, if the government wants to check if its reform makes a lot of sense and if it does not believe the points I just made, it only has to talk to the people to find out what they think. You will see that it will come back with a totally different reform than the one now before the House.
I hope that the Liberal government will take advantage of the holiday season to reflect on this, propose changes and ensure that Quebecers and Canadians can continue to be proud of the balance between the citizens, and realize that the future does not depend on development in big cities, on a lower unemployment rate in Montreal and Toronto, but on the premise that Canadians and their families from sea to sea to sea are satisfied and happy with what they are contributing to.
I think the government has tabled something that needs to be reviewed. That is why the House should condemn the government for its cuts to the unemployment insurance program. This should be in particular the responsibility of the members, who might have reviewed the reform a little in their caucus and may have had the time to express some points. Today, we will see if the members, especially those from the Maritimes, stand for the Liberal Party or for the people they represent.