Madam Speaker, on June 1, 1998, I rose in the House and put a question to the Minister of Human Resources Development. I will repeat that question because it is an important one.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Revenue should be ashamed for saying that he made workers pay the debt. While the Minister of Finance is spending the $17 billion surplus in the EI fund, fewer than 40% of unemployed workers are receiving EI benefits.
Will the Minister of Human Resources Development stop conducting studies and take action? Will he change the EI eligibility criteria in order to help the 780,000 workers who are not receiving benefits?
I was pleased with the minister's answer in June, which went like this:
Mr. Speaker, as I have said on many occasions in this House and throughout the country, it is clear that our government is concerned about the fact that only 42% of unemployed workers are covered under the existing EI system.
The minister was “concerned” that only 42% of unemployed workers were entitled to EI.
The minister went on to say:
My department has asked Statistics Canada to add a number of questions over the coming months so that we may get a clear picture of the situation these unemployed workers are facing. My department will be able to analyze the information provided by Statistics Canada and make informed decisions.
It is now October and finally the report we have all been waiting for is here. The minister is now hiding behind the fact that 78% of unemployed workers are eligible for EI. But they are eligible under the new criteria. What is worrisome, and must be discussed, is that the report indicates that only 43% of former contributors qualify for EI.
The amendments have been prejudicial to women in this country, including expectant mothers. In 1997, there were 12,000 fewer applications for maternity benefits. The new eligibility criteria require 700 hours, meaning that most women working part time do not qualify for benefits.
The minister turns around and says that the only reason they do not get EI benefits is that they did not work long enough. We, however, say to the minister that the reason these people no longer qualify is because they changed the criteria.
These 12,000 women did work and did pay their premiums, but because the rules were changed and people are now required to work 700 hours, they no longer qualify.
Another group that no longer qualifies is those who leave their jobs. In Canada, 100,000 workers quit their jobs, but the government says they did not have a good reason to do so and are therefore not eligible for employment insurance benefits, even though these people would have qualified in the past.
In 1993, when the Prime Minister was in the opposition, he sent a letter to people in Quebec, telling them that the Conservative legislation was terrible, that it was unacceptable, because workers who were sexually harassed could not even quit their jobs. He even wrote that workers who were harassed by their employer could no longer leave their jobs.
Now—