Madam Speaker, it is never easy to speak after hearing remarks as eloquent as the ones made by my colleague from Quebec. I will nevertheless try to clarify the motion before us today.
It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the important issue of employment insurance reform. For more than two years, we have been questioning the Minister of Human Resources Development about the steady decline in the number of unemployed workers who qualify for EI benefits.
All this time the minister claims to be concerned by this tragic situation, but does not do a thing to change it. Once again, the minister is full of good intentions, but does not act on them. It is always the same thing on the government side: all talk and very little action.
Worse yet, this government is trying to divert—and that is a rather strong word—the $7 billion it has taken—not to say “stolen”, for I do not want to use unparliamentary language, although the choice of words is still important—from workers and employers to spend as it pleases. This money does not belong to the government but to Canadian workers and employers.
As my colleague from Quebec said very eloquently a moment ago, the motion before us today concerns specifically an urgently needed amendment to the employment insurance plan. It must be recalled that this motion by the Conservative Party reads as follows: “That, in the opinion of this House, the government should continue with the Employment Insurance Small Weeks Adjustment Projects and amend the legislation in order to make the adjustment projects a permanent feature of the Employment Insurance Act.”
As my colleagues have already said, we in the Bloc Quebecois support this motion. We have in fact been calling for essentially the same thing for quite some time. My colleague has said that a number of bills have been introduced on this side of the House, but, unfortunately, the government has repeatedly ignored them.
Last December, we introduced Bill C-296, one of whose clauses provided a method for resolving the problem of the small weeks. Unfortunately, once again, the government has refused to deal with it. The opposition has therefore been obliged to use an opposition day. Yet again, the government is rejecting both the recommendations of the Conservative Party and Bill C-296, which the minister should frequently refer to. The Liberal government must pass this amendment as quickly as possible in order to repair one of the many inequities it has caused with its reform.
I will first explain what the small weeks adjustment projects are. Then I will explain why it is vital to make these pilot projects into a standard that will be universally applied. Finally, I will explain how the government is trying to hide behind a commissioned analysis in order to justify its inaction in this matter.
Currently, the Employment Insurance Act includes a new method for calculating benefits, which penalizes claimants by calculating a lower benefit amount. This method also discourages people from working who might otherwise be working a limited number of hours and weeks. This problem particularly affects high unemployment areas and some categories of workers, mainly the young and the women.
We believe however that this motion is not explicit enough, since it does not specify if the areas involved would only be those where pilot projects are currently under way or all the areas in Canada. Under the current EI system, only 21 administrative regions out of 54 are affected by the lumping or exclusion of the small weeks. We are convinced that the new formula, whether it be the lumping or the exclusion of the small weeks, should apply throughout Canada.
But first, I want to say that the government must act quickly because the small weeks pilot projects are coming to an end on November 15. As we all know, the purpose of these projects was to reduce some of the disincentives and devastating effects of the Employment Insurance Act. In fact, the new legislation unfairly penalizes those who agree to work small weeks, where they earn less than $150.
I think it is also important to mention, because it not only affects the formula, that these projects were to pacify the employers who were complaining about being unable to find employees ready to work small weeks. So, for some time now, some workers have agreed to work small weeks, because they thought the program would be renewed. The minister has to set things straight right away and tell us what he intends to do with these projects. If not, he would be penalizing these workers whom he has kept in the dark, without telling them what he was going to do.
Let me remind the House where this program to reduce the effects of the federal government's drastic cuts in the EI program comes from.
On March 5, 1997, barely two months after the coming into force of his new program, the Minister of Human Resources Development had to announce adjustment projects to mollify employers and workers in areas where unemployment rates were very high, including eastern Quebec and the maritimes. This admission of failure was the sign of his lack of vision and understanding of the impacts of a reform crafted mainly to save billions of dollars at the expense of the unemployed.
The main problem, already mentioned by the Bloc Quebecois, is the disincentive to work. A worker who accepts to work a few hours a week for a while, combining small and big workweeks, will probably be penalized financially the next time he puts in a claim. This is due to the new way benefits are calculated.
Suppose a worker in eastern Quebec works 20 big weeks at $450 a week, and six small weeks at $60, for a total of 26 weeks and an income of $9,360. Now he will have to make do on $198 a week.
Before the reform, he would have been entitled to $248 a week, and to $245 under the pilot project. In Quebec, 13.7%, that is nearly 14%, of people who lost their job have worked at least one small week. This rate is much higher in the maritimes and eastern Quebec. It is 24% in eastern Quebec and in the Chicoutimi—Jonquière area.
There are reportedly 25,000 persons in this situation in Montreal, which represents 11.8%. Women are more likely to be in this group: 22.7% compared to 5.5% of men. Young people are also affected: 17.2%, or almost 18 of young people under age 30, as opposed to 8% of people over age 30.
I think these figures are self-explanatory. The federal government has tightened EI eligibility criteria to such an extent that it is making young people and women pay for the debt with premiums they pay to protect themselves from unemployment. This misappropriation of funds is unacceptable and the government must agree now with today's motion.