Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to talk about the reforms to the unemployment insurance program and the development of the new employment insurance scheme.
Now would be a good time to reiterate that this reform is based on a number of broad, general principles to which the government is appropriately adhering. No doubt the best social security program a Canadian can have is a job. We have to keep that in mind in everything we do. At the end of the day the best way to ensure the security of individual Canadians is to ensure they have jobs.
We have to realize, as we certainly do in my part of rural Canada, we need to create an environment within which the small business sector can create wealth and employment.
This program goes a little further than that. There are proactive measures within the employment insurance program to help with the creation of jobs. We see proactive measures such as wage subsidies, the self-employment assistance program, which I have seen work well in my riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka, the earning supplement and job creation partnerships.
Job creation partnerships are of particular importance in a rural riding like mine where we have an opportunity to marry the need to provide experience for individuals who are temporarily out of the workforce with programs that will pursue economic development within our communities.
This combination of providing experience for people while they work on projects to help develop the economy of my rural part of the country, although applicable across the country, is an excellent approach to achieving the principle of maintaining support for individuals who find themselves unemployed. At the same time, it creates the infrastructure and the environment where long term jobs can be created and people will be able to find sustainable employment.
One of the things we have come to realize in dealing with reforms to the unemployment insurance program is that the situation is very different today than it was 30 years ago. At that time much of the employment created was of a temporary, cyclical nature where because of a downturn in demand for a short period of time an individual might find himself unemployed for two, three or four months.
Today that has changed significantly. Much of our employment is not the result of a temporary decline but because an industry or a job may no longer exist.
The need for a properly operating employment insurance program goes far beyond creating income support. It needs to address the whole issue of creating long term employment. Obviously this assists by working on infrastructure and by helping communities develop long term economic development goals.
The program deals directly with the small business community. In my riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka it accounts for almost all the jobs. It accounts across Canada for most of the new job creation.
It is important that we realize components in this reform program will assist the small business men and women who work every day in the riding to create wealth and employment for my constituents. The whole idea of creating a surplus in the UI fund is so we can have a stable UI rate and do not end up with a recession.
There is at least one economist in the House now who knows full well the very wrong thing to do during a recession is increase premiums to pay for the increased demand on UI.
What makes far more sense is to ensure we have a surplus so that when there is an extra demand during an economic downturn we will not have to exacerbate that demand by increasing UI premiums. This happened during the last recession.
We have also helped small business men and women with a number of other measures connected to this plan. We have a far more simplified system. Small business people become very frustrated, and rightly so, when they spend more time on paperwork and on adhering to regulations than they do doing their jobs and what they do best, creating wealth and employment.
This program, particularly the conversion to an hourly rate from a weekly rate, significantly reduces the administration cost to the small business community. This is a very positive step.
We saw a decrease in the premium rate business will have to pay. This is a positive step. Those types of taxes are job killers. It is positive that we are able to modify that rate, as is the whole idea that the maximum insurable earnings rate will give a break in terms of taxation to the small business community.
It is clear what we are trying to do with this reform. We are recognizing absolutely that the world of the 1990s is very different from that of the 1960s. It is not only an issue of income support, although that is very important and this program deals with that. This is an issue of making sure long term job creation occurs.
We are doing that by providing individual workers with a number of tools in this program. The committee had an opportunity to review those and we enunciated many times in the House that they are very positive initiatives. They will help individuals acquire the skills and experience they need to move into areas of employment that are long term and sustainable. On the other hand, an economic environment has been created that will allow the small business community to create wealth and those jobs which unemployed individuals need.
This is an excellent reform. The members of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development have worked hard on this bill over the last few months. I congratulate them and I look forward to seeing it passed in the House.