Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to Group No. 4 of the amendments to the bill. Naturally, I agree with the proposals and amendments submitted by the Bloc Quebecois on the Unemployment Insurance Commission.
I was an unemployment insurance referee for eight years in Montreal. What the commission needs is real powers, a real system for appeals to both the board of referees and the umpire as well as to the Federal Appeals Court.
The board of referees comprises three persons: an employee representative, appointed by the union; an employer representative appointed by employer associations and a chairperson. The chair of the board of referees is appointed by the government, that is, by the Minister of Human Resources Development, and the appointment involves patronage.
Had this bill made provision for the end of the patronage system, I would have no trouble supporting it, but it makes no such provision. Neither does it contain any provision to shorten the time period involved. We know that if a person is not satisfied with a decision by the board of referees, an appeal must be made to the umpire, which takes two or three years. A lawyer is involved, and justices from Ottawa go around hearing these cases.
Effective measures should have been taken to establish a real appeal system for those who are not satisfied with the decisions taken by officials. Many people consider that the commission members often make arbitrary decisions. Their decisions are made lightly, without meeting nor hearing recipients. There are errors in law or errors of facts. So, for all these reasons, I think that clause 4 cannot be agreed to as is.
I take this opportunity to regret and condemn the government's actions in gagging Parliament once again on this crucial bill. It gagged the committee on human resources development and even the House, when we have almost reached the end of the debate. This is not democratic. A government cannot suppress freedom of speech. A government cannot silence the opposition. It has no right to do so, especially about a bill as crucial as Bill C-12.
I never saw any change as fundamental as these ones since 1935, when the first Unemployment Insurance Act was passed. Unemployment insurance was a necessary system at that time, it still is and will remain so for workers. It is in existence in every country of the world, including the developing countries. I condemn this lack of democracy in Parliament. Many people who want to share their ideas cannot do so because the government is arbitrarily limiting the time.
In any case, I oppose this reform because it is unfair and regressive. Once again, I wish to express solidarity with the unemployed. I have been in Canada for 22 years, I have always worked, I have never been on unemployment insurance, but I have seen, as an arbitrator on the arbitration board, hundreds of human tragedies, people who were coming before us and whose only income was unemployment insurance.
They are already penalized because they were fired or laid off by their employer, sometimes after 25 or 30 years. They will not be able to find another job, because for people who are 45 years old and over, it is so difficult to find another job. These people were penalized by being laid off and they are penalized even more today by this bill, especially, as was said earlier, women, seasonal workers and immigrants.
This is a bill that is creating poverty. With regard to immigrants, an issue on which I have been working since 1980, the poverty level among immigrants is much higher than among people who were born in Canada. In 1994 for instance, 17.8 per cent of all families headed by an immigrant and 42,9 per cent of single immigrants were poor. By comparison, the poverty rates for families and individuals of Canadian stock are 12.6 per cent and 36 per cent respectively. As you can see, there is quite a striking difference between Canadians who were born here and those who came here. This bill will only make things worse.
I would like to conclude by saying that I, and the Bloc Quebecois as a whole, demand that Bill C-12 should be withdrawn immediately.