Madam Speaker, this bill which has come before the House probably represents one of the most technical of all the pieces of legislation we have had to deal with in this session to date. Indeed, the social and fiscal implications for same will be felt for many decades to come.
Certainly the amendments the Reform Party of Canada is bringing forward will add a positive element to the debate. In terms of reasoned amendments, we have put forward 10. I mention that because I do hope members on the government side will look at the amendments we bring forward in the true spirit of co-operation, but also with the intention of participating in the debate with some reasoned thought and proposals which we feel do have validity in today's workplace.
I would like to read into the record some elements of the definition of unemployment insurance, as our party sees it. The whole definition of unemployment insurance has changed radically under the bill. We have moved away from the notion of true insurance based principles. It is important for us to acknowledge that fact.
The employment insurance bill which we continue to debate today has taken us very far away from what UI was intended when it was originally designed. Today, as we have heard from hon. members on the other side of the House, EI is thought of as an income supplement and not as an insurance.
The Liberal minister of labour in 1940 when he was supporting the concept of individuals caring for their own unemployment situation, quoted from a report that went way back to 1919 when Manitoba Chief Justice Mathers said:
We recommend to the your government the question of making some provision by a system of state social insurance for those who, through no fault of their own, are unable to work, whether the inability arises from a lack of opportunity, sickness, invalidity or old age. Such insurance would remove the spectre of fear which now haunts the wage earner and make him a more contented and better citizen.
I do agree with the sentiments of the then labour minister who was concerned that UI be used to get people from one job to another, to support them for that short transition time before they went into the other job.
The minister of labour at the time was also concerned that UI would never become a way of life for people and that measures would be taken which would indeed avoid people becoming heavily reliant on that kind of subsistence. To make his point he quoted from a report by the Civil War Workers of Great Britain who said:
-how much unemployment there will be and over what period it will last is impossible to forecast. But, whatever it be, there must be a great deal of unemployment which can only be dealt with in one of two ways: either by a considered scheme of insurance-or by state doles, hurriedly and indiscriminately issued when the moment of crisis arrives.
There can be no question which is the better way. State doles may lead straight to pauperization. A well devised scheme of insurance preserves the self-respect of the worker and assists and encourages them to supplement it by provision made industrially through an association.
It is exactly this original intention of what unemployment insurance was meant to provide and what it was meant to mean that has slipped away from us in these major changes the Liberal government is bringing to the House today and on which we will vote in just a few days.
For many in Canada today, UI has indeed become a way of life. For too many people UI is that dole to which the then labour minister referred. With the new changes to UI the Minister of Human Resources Development has announced there are over $1 billion of training programs for areas of high unemployment. This is exactly the kind of dole that history in the past has repeated and cautioned us to not endorse.
As I was reading the executive summary of the bill, I was struck by a number of elements. The first one that made me certainly question the relevancy to unemployment insurance and work was the statement that "income support is provided in a way that reinforces work". I have asked questions on that statement many times and there is no one who has suggested or has even come close to explaining exactly how income support can provide a way to reinforce work. To me they are two discrete and very different things.
The executive summary went on to say: "It also permits simplification of the reporting requirements for employees and premium collections". I am going to read from a very real life example which is from the Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association. We are seeing that indeed simplification is not on when it comes to this industry.
The result of the change with respect to the conversion to an hours based system from a maximum weekly insurable system has major financial implications for employers and especially part time employees in Canada's food service industry because so many of our part time students work in this area.
Using the 1996 premium rate of .0413, human resources development officials have estimated the cost to this one industry alone, the food service employers, to be $35 million. This is certainly higher than what the Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association had originally estimated. It represents a 17 per cent increase on employer contributions of approximately $211 million.
Once again I ask: How does the statement "it also permits simplification of the reporting requirements for employees and of premium collection" really have any relevancy here when we understand that the impact of first dollar coverage on individual food service companies is going to fluctuate substantially depending on the percentage of part time employees working less than 15 hours per week? The nature of the reporting has become so complex that an analysis of this indicates that the employer is going to actually see an increase in employer premium costs from 15.7 per cent to 72.6 per cent.
That conversion to an hours based system not only alters the cost structure of some companies disproportionately, it also results in competitive distortions within the industry. It also creates a huge backlog of extra effort administratively for these businesses. That is something which I believe requires a great deal of clarification on the part of the Liberal government.
I understand my time is coming to an end, but there is another contradictory statement here. We look at two terms here: wage subsidy linked with reduction of dependence on income support. Those two statements are made in the same paragraph in the executive summary. I hope that over the course of this debate I will be able to come back to these elements of the executive summary because they are not the same thing. They are contradictions in terms. They also have great implications for the unemployment insurance scheme as it has been developed by the Liberal government.
On that note, for this time, I will close.