Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-71 now before the House, which seeks to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled last month in the House.
It is difficult to find positive things to say about this bill, since the budget alluded, of course, to the centralizing of the health care system, does nothing for the unemployed and is giving the agriculture sector nothing but crumbs. I want to show how this government managed to eliminate its deficit.
First, let us look at the employment insurance program. Members opposite are very stubborn; we keep telling them that the system is not working, that it is choking the unemployed. Let me give you an example. As members know, in recent years, the employment insurance benefits that the unemployed were not getting have been used to increase the amount in the employment insurance fund which, in turn, was used by the Minister of Finance to eliminate the deficit.
In the 1999 budget, the government confirms that it misappropriated the $7 billion EI surplus in 1998-99 and that it intends to repeat the performance with the anticipated $5 billion surplus in 1999-2000. Adding up all the billions that were taken from the unemployed, by the end of this year—and this is a real bug for the jobless—amounts to a $26 billion surplus, which has made the regions, including Quebec, poorer and put the jobless in a scary situation that still persists. These people have no hope that the system might some day meet their expectations.
When I rose a few weeks ago to speak to the budget, I had made a long list of suggestions to improve the employment insurance plan. However, when we on this side speak to the other side, I do not know, it is as if there is an invisible wall or some comprehension problem, but they do not understand common sense. They really do not understand common sense.
We are hoping that, finally, the Liberals opposite will understand what the Bloc Quebecois wants and what all the workers in Quebec and Canada are calling for.
First of all, improved eligibility: the end of discrimination against certain categories of unemployed because of their so called regularity on the labour market; a reduction from the current 700 hours to 300 hours the requirement for special illness, maternity or parental benefits; an increase in the number of weeks of benefit from 45 to 50; the abolition of the so called intensity rule, which progressively cuts benefit rates from 55% to 50% for contributors regularly drawing employment insurance.
As we know, like a diet, a plan can be hard on people. Sometimes people lose weight when they go on one. But the unemployed lose money. They really lose money. Since 1993, this government has ceaselessly attacked society's most disadvantaged. This government, and especially the Minister of Finance, has become very good at creative bookkeeping.
That brings us to the transparency of the EI fund. At a press conference last winter, the four parties, including the Bloc Quebecois, got together and called for the EI account to be kept separate from government operations and for the Employment Insurance Commission, not the minister, to be given sole authority over EI premium rates.
Every December, the minister trots out so-called good news that bears no resemblance to what unemployed workers want.
We also called for the rules that reduce the amount of benefits to be eliminated. We asked that the freeze on maximum insurable earnings be lifted, the 52 week base period be restored, and the calculation of benefits be based on the number of weeks required to qualify during which earnings are highest.
These are interesting and constructive suggestions, but nothing is happening. On the contrary, the government continues to dip into the EI surplus. Why? So that it can lower the deficit and, worse still, interfere in provincial jurisdictions. It is getting very good at this.
This was clear in the September 1997 throne speech written by a marketing specialist, the sole objective of which was to make sure the maple leaf appeared on everything.
Whether in provincial, municipal or rural jurisdictions, everywhere we turn, there is the maple leaf. With the millennium scholarships, we were even afraid we would have to have the Prime Minister's face on the documents. What do you suppose would happen to a Canadian dollar with the Prime Minister's face on it?