Mr. Speaker, on February 17, 1999, I asked the following question in the House:
Mr. Speaker, this budget confirms the Minister of Finance's continuing dependency on the EI fund. He is using the surplus in the EI fund to fill his coffers and line the pockets of millionaires. While the minister is paying off his debt on the backs of the unemployed, there is nothing in his budget for those who do not qualify for employment insurance.
I put the question to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources Development was the one who answered. I asked what was the amount of the surplus in the EI fund.
The minister told me it was $4.9 billion. He went on to add:
However, I am amazed that, on the opposition side, they keep pushing a pitiful and simplistic solution as the best way to help the unemployed, and that is to keep them on EI as much and as long as possible.
We on this side want to give the unemployed hope, a global strategy that will enable them to join the workforce. Unlike members on the other side, we want to give them hope, not dependency.
When it comes to dependency, it is the Minister of Finance who is dependent on employment insurance. Workers who have lost their jobs can no longer rely on it.
Even the Liberal member for Fredericton was reported in Time Transcript as saying “We want him to be generous with the EI system”. The Liberal members said that, after April 12, they would meet with the minister to tell him how badly the EI program was hurting Canadian workers.
They know it hurts and they are even discussing the issue, but they are not ready to discuss with members of the opposition and try to find solutions.
Even the bishop of Moncton said last week in L'Acadie nouvelle that the so-called black hole could not be allowed any longer in southeastern New Brunswick. Across the country, everyone knows that changes to employment insurance have hurt people.
I will briefly give an example. I got a call from a voter in my riding who was part of the Atlantic groundfish strategy. He had accumulated more than 850 hours. He made an application for employment insurance because representatives of the groundfish strategy had told him he was eligible for employment insurance benefits. He was told that, no, he was not, and that he would have to go back on the groundfish strategy. He appealed the decision, but he lost his appeal.
When he returned to the groundfish strategy, he was accepted. Later, he made another application for employment insurance benefits with the number of hours supposedly needed, and was told that there had been a mistake the first time and that he would receive employment insurance benefits. So he received his money, plus the benefits of the groundfish strategy. But he had also worked a certain number of hours.
He found himself in another income bracket, so he now owes Revenue Canada more money than usual.
He tried to have the problem settled at Revenue Canada, but he never succeeded. He was not able to obtain a solution from Human Resources Development Canada nor from anybody else. The system no longer works.