Madam Speaker, I, too, am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-12 to express a viewpoint which resembles that of my colleagues, of course, and also that of a lot of people in the riding of Témiscamingue. In fact, next Saturday, people will hold a demonstration in the streets of Rouyn-Noranda to show their opposition to this legislation, which will affect many of them.
We have to ask ourselves some questions. This legislation is called the Employment Insurance Act. That is awfully close to being false representation because it does not deal with employment in any way. The government wanted to change the name of the old unemployment insurance plan to show that it was proposing a reform involving significant changes. There are two ways to criticize this bill. It can be criticized for what is included in it, and for what was left out of it. Let me say at the outset that nobody can oppose the idea of modernizing our social programs, of adapting them and adjusting them to the reality of the 21st century.
I will have the opportunity, in the second part of my speech, to talk about the measures that could have been included in this bill to undertake a true unemployment insurance reform for purposes other than those of the finance minister. But even that is not very clear.
The first question I ask myself is, what is the real purpose of this reform? We know that after the first cuts made in the 1994-95 budget, there was a $5 billion surplus in the unemployment insurance fund at the end of the year.
There must be no mistake, the fund is not in a state of catastrophe. There are revenues of $5 billion more than there are expenses for unemployment insurance. Obviously, people will say there were years when there was a deficit. If we look cumulatively at it, since its inception and as we know it today, the unemployment insurance fund has a surplus of about $1 billion. In 1996, another $5 billion will be added to this surplus.
It cannot be said that the unemployment insurance plan was in a catastrophic state. However, the Minister of Finance made sure, in all sorts of ways, that he could take out this surplus and use it to lower his deficit. With most of his other reforms not giving any results, apart from his cuts in transfer payments, the minister decided to use the surplus in the unemployment insurance fund to provide a certain amount of revenue to reduce his deficit in the short term.
People have not got the time to put a magnifying glass to every government program. However, the unemployment insurance fund is supported by contributions from employers and employees. The Minister of Finance puts no money from the consolidated fund into it. It is paid for by employers and employees. So, to use this surplus is to steal from the unemployment insurance fund, it is to impose a sort of tax on employment. If that is what they want to do, let them say so. Let them cut contributions and add an employment tax to pay stubs. Let them explain the real things, because that is what is happening.
We could discuss the surplus for a long time, but I also want to speak of one measure in particular which goes against the present trend. Many people wonder about the way the job market is divided up. Many workers do a lot of overtime, while many people who could work are unable to find a job. How could the work be divided more fairly? Such a thing will not happen unless the government takes a number of courageous steps, sending out very clear signals that this is what it will support.
In this bill there is one measure which reduces maximum insurable earnings from $42,000 to $39,000. Concretely, this means that when people earning more than that do overtime work, the employee and the employer-but particularly the employer-will not have to contribute anything to unemployment insurance.
Put yourself in the employer's shoes. You have a job to be done, and you have a choice between paying a new employee, who will have to pay into the unemployment insurance fund-as will you-and paying someone who already works for you and for whom you will not have to make a contribution, if the work is done in overtime. If all of the social responsibilities of employers are defined in this way, there is a very clear message: Get people to do overtime, do not hire anyone new, it is more cost-effective that way.
The objective of people in business-legitimately and understandably so-is profit, personal accomplishment and so forth. If there is no clearer guidance, if they are not helped to discipline themselves a bit in this area, they will never of their own accord say that they are ready to divide the available work. It is our responsibility as legislators to ensure that policy orientations correspond to our realities.
This bill could have provided a good opportunity to modify contributions in the opposite direction, making sure it was more advantageous to hire new people than to pay a lot of overtime, too much in some cases. It must be understood that, in the medium term, employers would notice that those working slightly fewer hours were less tired, with fewer work-related accidents, and thus lower worker compensation contributions, and so on. But this requires a signal, something to set them off in the right direction, and there is no such thing in this reform.
I referred to the things that are lacking in this bill. I remember that during the debate over the free trade agreement-which I wanted, promoted and strongly believe in-there was a lot of talk about the adaptation it would necessarily bring about. For weeks, years now, we have heard about massive layoffs, job cuts in many companies. Often they are people who had held the same job for 15, 20, 25 years and who now, at 40 or 50, are unemployed, with many productive years left in them; as members of the labour force, their everyday life would be more stimulating and they could contribute to society.
Why are these people, who held a job for a long time before losing it now when we are entering a new era where technology is becoming more specific, not treated differently? Why not consider longer training or rehabilitation programs for these people and why not keep them much longer on UI?
I do not mean for the federal government to put in place its own training programs, far from it. Another thing lacking in this bill is the transfer of this area to the Quebec government and to the provinces wanting it, such as Quebec where the consensus is very obvious, and lengthening the entitlement period. You cannot go overnight from the textile industry to computer science, 25 to 30 weeks are not enough.
We must be realistic. I say it again, nothing in this bill guarantees that our unemployment insurance plan will be better adapted to the realities of the years 2000, namely changing jobs often, many human tragedies for those who had held a job for a long time and who will have to work in new sectors. There is nothing to this effect in the bill.
During the minute and a half I have left, I would like to go back to manpower training because I find nothing more frustrating than seeing someone come to my office and say: "I am unemployed, I would like to take a course. I read in the paper that the unemployment insurance, or some other organization, was offering a course". To know whether he is eligible or not, I have to ask him 56,000 questions: "Are you on UI? Have you ever been on UI? Are you on welfare?"
This situation is due to the fact that there are two levels of government with their own structure giving their own courses according to their own criteria. Obviously, since it is managing the unemployment insurance program, the federal government's objective is to target the unemployed. For its part, the Government of Quebec, which is responsible for social assistance, gives priority to welfare recipients. And in all of this, people without any income are nobody's priority.
That is a major problem that we will not be able to resolve as long as there are more than one level of government responsible for this matter. In Quebec we resolved this problem a long time ago. We decided that it would be the Government of Quebec, but some people here are stubborn, as they say; they have a hard time getting the message, which is very clear in Quebec and which was repeated during the last socio-economic summit.
So, for all these reasons, we cannot support such a bill, absolutely not, and I conclude by inviting the people back home in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the Témiscamingue riding, and especially those from Rouyn-Noranda-where there will be a demonstration this Saturday-to come and join us in condemning this manipulation of the unemployment insurance account and this bill, this so-called reform totally lacking in vision for the future, for the years 2000.