Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Lévis for editing the reports which guided our deliberations late into the night.
I would like to explain the amendments. In order to explain the need to make the amendments I want to put on the record why I personally believe the legislation was worthy of amendment rather than rejection. There are some good things in the bill that I want to bring to the attention of the House.
The shift from weeks to hours as the method of calculating eligibility or the value of work is an improvement, in terms of accessibility, in terms of duration, and in terms of people who have multiple jobs, for 87 per cent of the labour force in the province of New Brunswick. Eighty-seven per cent of the people work more than 35 hours a week. If they work more than 35 hours a week they benefit from the new bill.
People are entitled to employment benefits even after they have exhausted income benefits going back three years, or five years in the case of maternity or illness. That means all kinds of people who lost out on UI based programs in the past will now be eligible for up to three or five years of benefits, depending on the nature of their previous benefits.
The people whose family income is less than $26,000 saw, even before the amendments to which I am about to speak, an average increase in benefits of 7 per cent.
Finally, and this is very important, I support the clawback as it applies to people who draw on the system every year at the high income levels. Committee members from across the way were having difficulty with this, so I want to put it on the record. I do not think we can sustain the program politically if there are people making the minimum wage, working regular jobs and paying into the program when there are people making twice as much money and drawing every year, year over year. I just do not think that can be politically sustained. I am not talking about someone who lost their job; I am talking about someone who makes a large amount of money and draws every year. I do not think it is fair.
Having said that, there are three major amendments. There are many amendments and I thank the hon. member for Malpeque for recognizing the need to amend the suggestion that would allow the government to move on its incremental shifts.
There is the intensity rule. At the start we were talking about an intensity rule which would draw down the level of benefits from 55 to 45 on 10 weeks. By the time the legislation was introduced in December it was drawn down from 55 to 50, depending on 20 week blocks. The amendment of the hon. member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore will protect low income families whose family incomes are under $26,000 from the intensity rule. That means that instead of increasing their benefits by 7 per cent, their benefits will be increased by 13 per cent. That is a 13 per cent average increase in benefits for people whose family incomes are less than $26,000.
On the question of the divisor, when we originally started talking about it a year and a half ago we were talking about something in the neighbourhood of 26 weeks as a constant. By the time the legislation came forward it was 20 weeks. Then it was decided, to the credit of the former minister, that it should be done incrementally so as not to shock the system too much. It would be done over a period of time.
Finally, the fourth time the divisor was changed via an amendment presented by the member for Halifax, the divisor became two weeks more than the amount one would need to get into the system. In my part of the country it is 12, 14, 15 or 16 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate, plus 2. That is the improvement to the divisor. It is a significant improvement worth an enormous amount of money to people who cannot afford to lose in this program.
Third, there is the gap. I am inexplicably linked to the gap on this issue. I have a hat. Every time the commercials come on American television my kids say that daddy's going to be on television, they are talking about the gap.
When the shift was made from weeks to hours, the government had to come up with a mechanism to determine how much money a person would get in the new system. The original proposal was that from the time persons made their claim, they would go back the amount of weeks as defined by the divisor. Unfortunately, the language of the bill was that one would go back 14 weeks, or 15 weeks or 16 weeks. There was no reference to work.
Consequently, if claimants worked a period and were off for a period, then worked enough to get their claim, when they counted back consecutive weeks from their claim, there were many zeros. It was because people worked in industries where they might work in the spring and in the fall but might not work in the summer. It is very important to recognize that space.
The amendment that I was proud to put forward states that if one does not work for up to 26 weeks, it does not count. One can go back from the time one lays a claim, not to weeks but to weeks of work. By doing that $246 million was put into the system which will go into the hands of people who are struggling to put enough weeks together to draw employment insurance. It is very important that Canadians understand exactly what this means. There is equity in the program.
I would like to thank the two ministers, the present minister and his predecessor, for having engaged this place in a very extensive discussion. Anyone who says that this debate was closed down should have been with the committee in Whitehorse, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Victoria, Vancouver, Yellowknife, Iqaluit, all over the country. Over a couple of years it received approximately 600 briefs.
This was a very well debated issue. As a result, many changes were made. I remember the two-tier concept which we do not see anymore. There are various amendments I have talked about today. We went into this exercise with a twofold objective, to deal with
the anomalies created by unemployment insurance of which there are many. That has been done.
It is not over. It will never be over. It is an ongoing process to which improvements can always be found. I am beginning to identify some aspects of the system which need attention. On balance it is a significant improvement which constitutes very significant reform in the system.
Again I thank both ministers, I thank all colleagues involved over the past two years in committees on this issue. It has been an incredible exercise. As I said a week ago during debate on this bill, the system, the committee and the process has served the nation well.