Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak on third reading debate of Bill C-12, the employment insurance act.
I feel most privileged to have worked on the human resources development committee examining the bill. I enjoyed the thrust of debate with members opposite as we strove to improve the bill for the benefit of all Canadians. I sincerely believe the bill and the process undertaken speak well for democracy.
In my experience as a farm leader I appeared before many parliamentary committees and in my experience as a parliamentarian I have never seen such substantial changes made to a bill in the interest of the people from whom we have heard. Improving the bill to address the concerns of people is what this process was all about. It has been a very long process.
The green book on social security reform was tabled a little over two years ago. When that paper came down I held a couple of public meetings. People were very concerned about the direction that might be taken by human resources development in terms of social security review. A committee went all across the country with members from all parties in attendance. The committee heard over 600 presentations. It heard a lot of concerns about the two tier system and where we might be going on UI. It came back with what I think was a wonderful report, on which part of this legislation is based.
A seasonal industry task force was set up. Its report mentioned how important seasonal industries are, that seasonal industries do not work only during one season but create economies downstream. They create full time jobs in industries other than their own in terms of the products and services they need within the seasonal industries. Seasonal industries are made up of full time workers who are highly skilled and much needed in those seasonal industries. The government took that to heart and took those issues into account in terms of the preparation of the final stages of Bill C-12.
When Bill C-12 was introduced I held public meetings in my riding, as did many of my colleagues. We expressed as members of the government our concerns internally and publicly on the bill. We said publicly that there was a problem in terms of some areas as they impacted on the seasonal industries, and we moved to correct those changes.
We also recognized some very good points in the original bill. It is an hour based system. It gets rid of the 15 hour job trap. The part II benefits include $800 million for reinvestment in such programs as wage subsidies, earning supplements, self-employment assistance, job creation partnerships, skill loans and grants. Those are important points.
I have made it clear from the very beginning that scrapping the bill was not an option. We are dealing with the realities of the turn of the century. We need improvements to the bill and we will try to achieve them. We must work as members of Parliament toward improvements. The former minister and the current minister agreed and showed an openness for change.
We heard concerns. One was from Jacinta Deveau:
At a time when corporations are making record profits and yet still laying people off, now is not the time to start increasing qualifying times or decreasing benefits particularly for those people who must resort to applying for benefits, must do so for longer periods of time and in greater numbers; add this to the competition for fewer and fewer numbers of jobs sought only not by those people caught in the corporate downsizing and adjustment but those in seasonal and non-full time job occupations and you have a recipe for disaster in the Atlantic region generally and P.E.I. in particular.
We did not bury our heads in the sand when we heard that concern. Government members moved to correct that concern. We corrected it in several ways. That concern we corrected by fixing the gap and improving the divisor. We are certain the employment measures will move some distance to improving the job situation.
We did not take the position to scrap the bill. We listened and moved to make improvements. That is very different from what I have heard from members opposite.
The hon. member for Mercier, the critic for the Bloc, talked about the lack of debate. On the night of the filibuster those of us sitting on the government side wanted to debate the substantive issues to see if there were other areas of improvement. Is the hon. member asking us to do away with the employment measures which will help people to get jobs? Is the hon. member asking that we scrap the benefits for low income families? Is the hon. member asking us to go back to a system which had within it a 15 hour job trap that trapped mainly women in part time jobs? This bill improves that situation. Members opposite should recognize that.
I will list some of the other improvements we have been able to accomplish through this debate. Members on the government side have fixed the gap, the dead weeks. We have managed by making amendments to the legislation to take out of the calculation base those weeks that would have been considered as zero earnings. We have fixed that gap to the benefit of seasonal workers and of workers generally.
We have changed the divisor to make it more uniform across the country. It will be the regional rate plus a divisor of two. That does two things. It sets some stability and it ensures for business that there is an incentive out there for people to find work instead of simply going on UI.
We have fixed the intensity rule to a great extent. We have ensured the intensity rule does not apply to low income families with dependants. There will be a method of receiving an intensity rule credit for those who work while on unemployment.
This is in part based on the concerns raised by some of the people who have been demonstrating. In order to ensure that these good amendments that Liberal members have made are secure into the future, the power of a future minister to change the divisor by regulation has been deleted from the bill. In the future changes will be made in the House and not by the executive.
I am pleased with what has been accomplished. I will admit that one good amendment was moved by members opposite. We supported and it was incorporated in the bill. It goes to show what can be done if the opposition is more co-operative instead of saying "scrap the bill". We really do not want filibusters. We have made great strides forward.
The minister said that the bill is not perfect, that there are some areas of concern. However, as a government we do listen and we make changes to meet the needs of people.
In closing, I would like to quote Alice Nakamura. I think she is right on target:
You have proven wrong all those who told me this reform effort was a waste of time. Bill C-12 tackles the serious problems with our present UI program, making use of the best available research about how our labour markets and social programs function. And it is a bill that pays careful attention to the real life problems of transition. It strikes a careful balance between the desperation of people who cannot find enough work and have depended on the income from UI benefits and the desperation of economic analysts who recognize the threat which trends in our present UI program pose for our economy and the future employment prospects for Canadians.