Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to what the government is calling employment insurance, which I consider not only unemployment insurance, but, alas, an unemployment guarantee. Let me explain why.
One element of the bill before us proposes to lower maximum insurable earnings from $43,000 to $39,000.
This will have major macro economic effects, which I have never heard mentioned either in this House or in committee. You are no doubt aware that people earning more than $39,000 but less than $43,000 will have more disposable income, whereas at the other end of the spectrum, the low wage earners, who in the past were not insured, now will be. But, they will be because they will be contributing to unemployment insurance.
Their disposable income will shrink. When we look at individual cases, this seems insignificant. However, when we look at the big picture, at the figures as a whole, we realize we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, indeed billions of dollars coming out of the pockets of low wage earners and going into the pockets of high wage earners. This will mean macro economic consequences for retailers, businesses and industry. Let me explain.
The low wage earners, with less disposable income now, will spend less, not for luxuries, they never had the means anyway, but for life's basic necessities. The high wage earners, with more disposable income, generally, will be able to buy luxury items.
What does this mean? How will this flow of money affect Canada's economy? Very simply, the economies of provinces with more low wage earners will centre on immediate need products, whereas in the economies of the provinces with higher wage earners, business and industry will develop around luxury items. Regions will become polarized based on people's average salary.
What this bill is doing is shifting wealth, and we have to face the fact, because incomes are not equal coast to coast. There are regions in Canada, in Quebec, less well off than others, where there are more low wage earners than in other regions where there are high wage earners.
With this new plan, the government if transferring several billions of dollars from areas with only low income earners to areas with high income earners.
I ask you: What do you think this is going to lead to in three, five or ten years? Poor areas will become poorer and the rich ones will become richer. The laws of macro-economics are that simple and obvious. You cannot play with these numbers and believe that the results will be simple and easy to arrive at.
I have never seen in a committee, or in the House, someone showing us an econometric model of the consequences of the implementation of this system. One should not rush into such a decision. This is not the kind of decision you want to make hastily, and yet this is exactly what this House is going to do with this bill. There will be consequences.
The government is going to push some regions into poverty to the benefit of others which will get richer. When a country creates poor and rich regions, eventually it does not maximize its potential. It will eventually have to pay a price for it because rich areas will have to help keep poor areas economically active. The law of consumption, the great law which allows businesses to sell goods to consumers, will be faced with an impossible equation.
You see, if people can no longer afford to consume, how will businesses be able to produce goods and make a profit? Somebody forgot that businesses cannot afford to be only profitable, efficient and productive, they also need a market. Their market is made up of people like you and me, people who are listening to us and who have to earn a living day in and day out, and be left with enough money to be able to treat themselves to some of the niceties of life. And yet, what we are doing with this bill is transferring billions of dollars from the pockets of the poor into the pockets of those who are better off.
Let us imagine for a moment that the government is implementing one of the recommendations made by the Bloc Quebecois and that everybody contributes to the UI fund regardless of any maximum insurable earnings. We would then be able to keep the UI fund in the black and provide adequate benefits to those in need, while reducing premiums and correcting inequities between the haves and the have-nots, between prosperous regions and disadvantaged regions. This solution would not be nearly as harmful and may even have a positive impact, while those who introduced this bill clearly did not assess its potential negative consequences.
I would also like to talk about seasonal work. Seasonal industries represent an important component of the Canadian economy from coast to coast. If you attack the seasonal industry in a region or in all regions, you will weaken-not you personally, Mr. Speaker, but the government, which I am addressing through you-the country's economy as a whole.
The bill before us may well undermine seasonal work. Any weakening of seasonal work would have negative consequences for the regions affected. Preventing this essential component of our economy, which provides us with fruits and vegetables at certain times of the year and offers us winter sports, from running properly would hurt the Canadian economy as a whole.
As consumers, seasonal workers who can no longer support themselves throughout the year will have less to contribute to the Canadian economy. As a result of this reduced consumption, a business somewhere will be stuck with surplus inventory and forced to cut production and then to lay off non-seasonal workers.
We see what this could lead to. Sooner or later, attacks against seasonal work will become attacks against permanent jobs.
We are falling into a bottomless pit. It is not the first time this government and the previous one have committed basic errors in strategy. I will not talk about former minister Lalonde's national energy policy, a catastrophe for which we are still paying the price today. I will not talk about those policies which, year after year, have led us into a hole that is $560 billion deep.
I will talk about what we are doing here today, which is gambling with a sum of about $16 billion. In essence we are gambling because, until now, no other country in the world has dared take the measures we are about to take, that is to estimate insurability not based on the number of weeks worked, but based on the number of hours. What will be the consequences? I do not know, nobody here knows, and not only does it concern me, I find it totally unacceptable.
Before going any further with this bill, the government should have the decency to build a comprehensive econometric model to measure the consequences of this legislation. Then we could make the necessary adjustments or the necessary change of course, as the case may be, to achieve the desired results.
Only 40 per cent of unemployed Canadians are covered by the unemployment insurance plan, which is not much. It is not an employment policy. In a case like this, I can only wish the government not only withdraw its bill, but that it withdraw from the area of employability and transfer this responsibility to the provinces, especially Quebec which has been waiting for that for a long time. It is ready to assume this responsibility with policies that will be beneficial not only to Quebec, but to the rest of Canada as well.