Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues, I must also state that this bill is a poor one.
I would like to congratulate the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, the only government member who seems to have understood something and who had the courage to rise in this House and honestly speak his mind.
As I have already said, this bill dealing with employment insurance in Canada, which is now at report stage, is a real injustice. It is unfair, regressive, anti-job and it will only cause poverty. Never before has any government so seriously challenged the social safety net essential to citizens. Employment insurance,
or rather poverty insurance, will offer the unemployed less and less support; they will be left to fend for themselves.
With a $5.5 billion surplus and an unemployment rate exceeding 20 per cent in some regions, I cannot fathom how we can call this bill an employment insurance bill.
One point particularly close to my heart goes back to the last unemployment insurance reform. I remember the Liberals, then in the opposition, had raised quite an uproar when the government changed the system so that workers willingly quitting their jobs, or being fired, were excluded from the unemployment insurance system.
And what will the present bill change? Absolutely nothing. The government is not correcting the injustice it denounced so strongly when it was in the opposition. Clause 33 of the bill confirms the principle. It says claimants will not be entitled to benefits if they voluntarily quit their job or lose it because of so-called misconduct.
Did the government consider those who hold several jobs? This new system will take into account each hour worked. Three hours at McDonald, four hours at Harveys, one week-end at Loblaws. According to the government, this is the way low income earners will be able to become eligible for employment insurance.
But what will happen if a worker who is holding several casual jobs decides to voluntary quit one to readjust his work schedule? Will this voluntary departure be entered in his file? Will he be eligible for employment insurance?
This is only one small example of the many flaws of this reform. It has all kinds of flaws. Eligibility criteria are being tightened. Before, 12 to 15 fifteen-hour weeks, for a total of 180 to 300 hours, depending on the situation, were needed to become eligible. With this bill, to become eligible will require from 420 to 700 hours of work, or 12 to 20 thirty-five-hour weeks. In the case of new entrants to the labour force, the number of hours necessary is three times higher that it was.
From now on there will two categories of unemployed workers: the regular ones and the frequent ones. Those with an attachment to the system will see their benefit rate drop from 55 to 50 per cent, or 1 per cent for every 20 weeks they were paid benefits. This measure means that people will have to work longer to be entitled to lower benefits for a shorter period of time.
This bill is regressive because there will only be one premium rate, a fixed rate for all workers, and maximum insurable earnings will be $39,000 instead of $42,380 as under the current system.
I will give you an example of the consequences of this measure. A worker who earns $39,000 or less pays 2.95 per cent of his salary in premiums. A worker who earns over $39,000 a year will stop paying premiums once the threshold is reached. The more a worker earns, the more his percentage of premiums drops.
The employment insurance bill is also an anti-employment measure. In fact, the five-cent reduction in workers' premium rates, from $3 to $2.95, and the establishment of the $39,000 ceiling on insurable earnings, gives capital intensive businesses an advantage over labour intensive businesses, which are essentially small and medium size businesses that create jobs. This measure encourages overtime among high income earners.
This is a motion that really hurts workers. The load is lightened for high income earners, while those who earn less are asked to carry a greater burden. As I have just said, higher wage earners are simply being given an opportunity to work extra hours, which will automatically eliminate jobs.
Not only does the reform encourage overtime, but it also encourages people to hold down two or more jobs. Despite all that has been said about reducing the work week in order to create employment, Bill C-12 is headed in a completely different direction.
Finally, this bill will lead to poverty. By reducing benefit rates, taxing workers from the first hour and tightening eligibility criteria, thus cutting off certain clients entirely, the new measures will result in an increase in the number of people forced to turn to welfare.
This bill has wide ranging effects: young people, women, immigrants, new claimants, the regions, family benefits, eligibility and the calculation of benefits, seasonal workers, self-employed workers and the handicapped. To sum it up, this bill is just like this government. It dabbles with everything and solves nothing.