Mr. Speaker, a while ago I asked the former minister of human resources development how he expected public trust and confidence in government to be restored when his government pulled an about face on unemployment insurance. We all remember the red book promise about public trust and confidence in government.
How did he see the serious hypocrisy of his actions, I asked. While in opposition he and his Liberal colleagues opposed Conservative cuts to UI which were not nearly as deep as those they recently pushed through the House.
In today's economic climate support programs like UI are necessary to help workers adjust to changing technological and global economic circumstances; however, income support alone
has not and will not create the long term economic growth and jobs that today's economy demands.
Clearly our aim should be to move the debate forward and develop a bold new approach to unemployment and unemployment insurance reform. It is no longer enough to focus solely on the unemployed, who have clearly been made a scapegoat by successive Liberal and Conservative governments. Instead I believe it is time to focus on what is required from society as a whole, from those who are looking for work, those who are able to supply it, and the governments which facilitate relationships between the two and which help to shape the way we do business in Canada.
A creative and modern approach would include a scheme which would of course provide the unemployed with adequate resources for living for themselves and their families but which would also enable unemployed Canadians to get back to work and, when possible, to get the kind of jobs that match their needs.
Real UI reform involves helping Canadians to find the kind of work they need and to help in creating the kind of workforce which can win a place in the global economy. This certainly means that overlap and duplication must be dealt with. It means establishing partnerships between federal, provincial and municipal governments and the private sector.
The issue of dependency and abuse must also be dealt with, but separately from issues surrounding benefit levels and conditions so that eligibility benefit levels, training, job creation schemes and other active measures can be discussed in a more rational way.
Unfortunately this has not been the case in Canada when UI reform has been discussed by the government. With the present policies, these crucial objectives are farther from being met than ever before.
It is clear that the kind of reform carried out by successive Liberal and Conservative governments amounts to little more than thinking up new wheezes with which to bash the unemployed. Liberals on the government side opposed those measures when they were in opposition but now support them. The approach of the current government to unemployment and UI is more a restatement of the problem than a strategy to improve active support and develop truly effective measures to deal with unemployment and the transition of the unemployed into the labour market.
The primary solution being offered is that the unemployed should receive less in benefits for a shorter period of time and the benefits should be harder to get; a strategy that has been tried and shown to have failed over the last decade and a half.
Further, perhaps one of the most troubling measures with the government's UI reform constitutes the theft of $1.9 billion belonging to employers and employees. Even with the reinvestment into so-called active programs, the government admits to stealing more than $1.1 billion, money which plainly does not belong to the government. The government expects that two years from now there will be a $10 billion surplus in the UI fund. Instead of using these surplus funds to establish more aggressive and more constructive active support measures that would help the unemployed get back to work, measures that have been proven highly successful in other countries, the Minister of Finance will use this money so that he can meet his deficit reduction targets. This is theft, plain and simple, and we cannot afford to continue in this way.
Canadians understand the need for a UI program that is fair, which provides basic financial support and which encourages and makes available the tools they need in order to re-enter the labour market.
Canadians support aggressive active support measures that help people get back on their feet. The unemployed want a system that focuses on moving UI recipients into the workforce and which will support them in their efforts to achieve a greater degree of independence. This is a modern and progressive agenda which this legislation falls sadly short of. There are active measures but we know that they are simply not adequate for the needs of Canadians.
I want to remind the minister that Canadians are watching as this government continues to listen to and give unfair and undeserved tax breaks to banks and big corporations while cutting funding for unemployment insurance, health care, education and other services needed by people.