Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House on Bill C-12.
This bill is the culmination of a two-year effort on behalf of the government to change, to clarify and to improve, hopefully, the unemployment insurance system of this country. It has been a very long time coming.
The people of Canada had their first look at this bill last December. Some parts of it were greeted with a great deal of anger in some areas. One of the things that really upset members of Parliament and seasonal workers in particular was the calculation of benefits and what became known as the gap. They were also upset with the divisor rule, which reduced their benefits a great deal, as well as with the intensity rule, which would penalize people who worked in seasonal industries.
It is unfortunate that in Canada we have winters. We do not fish or farm in the wintertime. Neither do we have much of a tourist industry in the wintertime. Most of our nation consists of seasonal industries manned by seasonal workers. They are full time workers in seasonal industries. To penalize them, which was the message they received last December, would be a very unfair way to treat them.
With the change in the cabinet, the new minister undertook to rectify those situations. The minister of HRDC comes from an area which has seasonal labour, whether it be fishing, forestry, mining, tourism or whatever. A large percentage of the workforces in New Brunswick and in P.E.I. consists of seasonal labour. In my riding of Egmont almost 50 per cent of the labour force is seasonal. To penalize them, as we would have been under the bill which was introduced in 1995, was unfair and the new minister recognized that.
The minister and the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development put a lot of work into improving the bill. They worked very long hours. There are a lot of amendments which came from members of the Atlantic caucus and also from members of the Ontario caucus, the Manitoba caucus and the B.C. caucus. As I said earlier, the country is made up of seasonal industries due mainly to its geography.
I compliment the hon. member for Fredericton-York-Sunbury. He put an enormous amount of time and concern into rectifying the bill. I also compliment my colleague from Malpeque who made an amendment which will be introduced later on that will improve the bill.
The main problem with the old bill was the gap. When a seasonal worker applied for unemployment insurance they had to count back consecutively 14 straight weeks to calculate their benefit. Oftentimes there was no work at all. Even though an individual qualified to apply, they did not have 14 consecutive weeks. In an extreme case a person could have one week and 13 zeros. That is how ridiculous the previous proposal was.
We tend to ignore or forget that there was quite a protest against these parts of the bill. Whether it was in P.E.I., New Brunswick, Quebec or Ontario, people came out to help us make these changes in the bill. I was glad to see them demonstrate their support for the changes we were proposing. They made sure we held to our word that we would change the gap, the intensity rule and the divisor.
Once a person's seasonal employment is finished, whether it is in August or October, they can go back 26 consecutive weeks. If their 14 weeks, or their 12 weeks in the case of Prince Edward Island, is within that 26 week period, they will receive full benefit for the contributions they have made.
This will take care of the vast majority of seasonal workers. There will be a few who slip through the cracks. As with any new legislation there is always improvements that can be made. Even though they may not be made in this bill, in the future amendments can be made to protect those people who fall through the cracks.
There may be a year of adjustment for some people who apply in July for unemployment insurance benefits. When they take the previous fall's work weeks, coupled with the spring work weeks and then apply for unemployment insurance in July, these people will be left out. They will have a year of adjustment which may be tough.
On the intensity rule, it is not a perfect solution. However, if we had all kinds of money to apply to every problem we have I suppose we would never get out of debt or never get our deficit under control.
We have to credit the minister for going back to cabinet and securing funds which will take care of the cost of the gap, the cost of the intensity rule and the cost of the divisor rule. When we add it all up there is about an extra half billion dollars put into the bill over the past month.
The intensity rule now is that if someone is a repeater but their household income is $26,000 or less they will not be penalized. Depending on their dependants, they may be able to qualify for an extra amount of money because they are a low income earner. Those with higher incomes will be penalized 1 per cent a year for five years, which is still money and still a penalty. I believe it should still be recognized that $26,000 in this day and age is not a great amount of money and these people should not be penalized.
UI was never designed to support somebody who is making $60,000 or $70,000 net income. With the clawback that situation will be rectified to an extent where in five years' time someone making $48,000 will still be eligible to draw UI. Over that they will not be able to draw UI. I do not think anybody can argue with the fairness of that stipulation in the bill.
I know there are a lot of other things that can be said about the bill. I compliment the committee again for all its hard work, especially the members in my province, the members for Malpeque and Hillsborough, who have devoted a lot of their time to improving the bill.