Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of the employment insurance legislation before the House.
The bill is key to our government's commitment to the reform of the social security system. As Secretary of State for the Status of Women and as a B.C. MP, I am pleased to say fairness and inclusiveness are hallmarks of the bill. It retools the outdated Unemployment Insurance Act of 1971 for our times.
In the 1990s structural unemployment created a new problem that the old UI system had not been designed to address. Through no fault of their own, workers were being laid off and found it difficult to get permanent work. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is the advent of a new era of technological and information based industries.
The end result was that UI, which was meant to assist workers through temporary short term job displacement, was ill equipped to respond to the frequent recurrent, and in some cases permanent, job loss characteristic of structural unemployment.
The only way to deal with structural unemployment, as the rest of the industrial world is beginning to find out, is to become relevant to the new industrial reality. To do this means retraining and providing workers with the tools and skills for the new world of work. Canadians want to work, to be independent economically and to provide the infrastructure for Canada's competitiveness in the global economy.
This bill creates a new and modern employment insurance system for Canadians who agree we need to realign our social programs and who want these changes made with fairness and with flexibility, with a human face.
Canadians have had a direct hand in shaping this reform and the result is an insurance plan that focuses on employment, training and entrepreneurship, not unemployment. This new system will help more Canadians prepare for, find and keep work in the new economy, and goes so far as to create jobs.
One of the most significant features of this reform is that while 96 per cent of current UI recipients will still be eligible, 500,000 new claimants will be able to receive benefits, a majority of whom are women and youth.
The new bill also recognizes the regional diversity of the country. For the first time, fewer hours will be required to qualify in high unemployment areas such as northern B.C. and the maritimes. The bill recognizes for the first time the inherent differences in the work patterns of men and women and seeks to remedy them.
The evolution of women's aspiration for equality has created a different dynamic in the workforce. Today women make up 45 per cent of the paid workforce.
Women have become such a force in the labour market in the past 25 years that addressing issues of interest to women means addressing the numerous characteristics of the new economy, issues such as nontraditional work, conflicts between job and family responsibilities, and various models for entering the work force.
Women tend to work fewer hours than men and to earn less. They are more likely to be in nontraditional jobs.
The new EI recognizes the different realities of women and men because it is the first major federal initiative designed with the benefit of formal gender analysis. I point out how this has been reflected in Bill C-12.
One of the major strengths of this legislation is the move from weeks of work to hours of work as the basis of the plan. In today's fluid job market the week is no longer the best measure of labour force participation. The hour is a more accurate measure of work effort since it will acknowledge the efforts of all part time workers who put in under 15 hours of work a week, often doing so in more than one job, and who were not allowed to participate in the benefits other workers enjoyed. Now premiums are paid from the first hour worked. Every hour counts toward a claim.
For the first time women may be able to qualify for maternity, parental and other special benefits they were previously ineligible for. Almost 70 per cent of part time workers are women. This change means 500,000 more Canadians will have their work insured for the first time. Concerns have been raised that if women in this position cannot get more hours of work they will lose their claim to maternity or parental benefits.
Gender based analysis showed that at most 2 per cent of current maternity claimants would need to work longer to qualify for these special benefits but that they will get them. Also, now that every hour counts, employers will have less reason to limit the hours of their part time workers as they did in the past. Many Canadians who hold down multiple jobs will be eligible for EI for the very first time.
Another group of workers who will benefit under the new system are seasonal workers, 38 per cent of whom comprise the B.C. workforce. These people working in logging, mining, fisheries, tourism and construction. They often have a gap in the off season which breaks up their continuous weeks of work criteria. Now, not only will they carry over for up to a 26 week gap, but the hour system will increase their eligibility by recognizing the intensity of their work over the on season.
Bill C-12 will help low income Canadians. Some 350,000 Canadians with family incomes of less than $26,000 a year will be eligible for the family income supplement. Two-thirds of these are women who will receive a top up for up to 13 per cent of their benefit. They will be able to keep a foot in the job market door by supplementing their benefits by $50 or 25 per cent of their weekly benefits, whichever is higher.
About 1.3 million low income Canadians will now have their EI premiums refunded, including almost 700,000 women and about 300,000 youth.
The new EI plan is a pro-employment plan where benefits will be balanced by five active employment initiatives designed to help unemployed Canadians find their place in the labour force. Wage subsidies will give employers an incentive to hire people in targeted groups who face barriers to employment. Many of these beneficiaries will be women and youth.
An innovative new benefit, targeted earning supplements, will top up the income of eligible claimants who take a low earning job.
Self-employment assistance has already helped more than 34,000 Canadians to start their own businesses. This is especially exciting for women who now make up one in every three entrepreneurs. Skills, loans and grants support individual initiative and commitment.
Access to these benefits has been broadened to include more Canadians. Anyone who received insurance benefits in the previous three years and anyone who has claimed maternity, parental or adoptive benefits in the past five years, will now be included.
This new system is both economically and socially responsible. It is proactive and balanced.
It will bridge the difficult transition in a world that is moving out of one industrial era into another, where the status quo no longer works, where a plan designed to meet the needs of a boom generation has become irrelevant.
Change is always difficult at best. How to change in ways that moves us forward competitively into the new world reality is what the EI bill proposes. It reinforces the value of work and our belief as Canadians that we can create prosperity and security in the new millennium. I urge the House to pass this bill and to help Canada accept the challenges and benefits that the 21st century offers.