Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to stand up and give the official opposition's take on this new bill, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act.
In our view this bill violates three important principles. First, it violates the principle of sound policy making based on consultation, completeness, addressing fundamentals, all the things that good policies do and this bill does not.
Second, the bill violates the principle of doing the most good for the most people. Here we see a very short-sighted, very narrow approach taken to the unemployment insurance regime.
Third, the bill violates the principle of public interest over self-interest. I think everyone knows that the bill is being rushed in on the eve of an election simply to increase the political fortunes of the Liberals in some parts of the country. That is an insult to all Canadians in those parts of the country.
As an overview, the bill purports to do six things. First, it increases the amount that a seasonal worker can earn before his or her EI is clawed back. It is increased from $39,000, which is the average industrial wage, to close to $50,000.
Second, the bill puts into place a single rate of repayment for those who are clawed back at 30% instead of a higher clawback for more frequent claimants.
Third, it eliminates the clawback for all first time claimants.
Fourth, it eliminates the intensity rule which clawed back a portion of benefits for all frequent recipients of EI.
Fifth, it makes it easier for parents who left the workforce to raise children to qualify for EI benefits.
Sixth, it exempts paternal, maternity and sickness benefits from the clawback.
Those are the six things that the bill purports to do.
As I said, we believe that the bill violates three important principles and I would like to spend my time elaborating on that.
First, the bill violates the principle of sound policy making. This is a very important issue for Canadians. Many Canadians access EI benefits from time to time but more importantly, every single Canadian worker and every single Canadian business pays into and support the system and is therefore a very important stakeholder in the system. If we are going to change the system, then we need to get it right.
The House will know that about two decades ago an exhaustive study was made of the EI system by the Forget Commission which resulted in about 15 volumes of recommendations. Almost none of those have ever been implemented, including in this bill. Yet we have a bill coming forward in the face of not only the study that I mentioned but many subsequent studies and articles by experts and policy thinkers. The bill does virtually nothing to address the perversities, the complexities and the things that plainly are not working in the EI system. This is not good policy making.
What is needed is real reform of the EI-UI system, not just this kind of tinkering. In fact, to my knowledge the government consulted no one before bringing in the bill.
I think everyone acknowledges that this system, which is profoundly flawed, was supposedly fixed by these Liberals in 1996. Yet those so-called reforms just made things stingier. They did nothing to fix the underlying problems of the system.
The so-called reforms that the Liberals brought in in 1996 have now been summarily reversed with a stroke of the pen. Why? One can only suppose that it is to enhance Liberal electoral chances in Atlantic Canada; shocking as it may seem that the Liberals would stoop to such transparent tactics.
The fact is that the changes the Liberals brought in in 1996 drew an outcry from many of the people affected right away. That was four years ago. If the concerns which the Liberals heard about the system and about the changes they made were legitimate, why did it take four long years, right up until the brink of an election, for them to do something about it?
The member on the other side who just spoke did nothing to address that question and a lot of people are wondering why now. Why ignore concerns, outcries and discontent for years and years and then all of a sudden decide to do something now? The present changes have also been criticized very widely. There are some legitimate criticisms which need to be answered by the government.
Many people feel that these changes will simply make it profitable for industries to gear up for short seasons. They believe they will not be doing their workers a disservice because their workers have the EI cushion. Instead of offering workers long term, stable jobs that they can count on to raise their families and better themselves in the long term, these changes simply pour cold water on that kind of positive change.
Some people are also concerned about the fact that these changes and others really entice young people to leave school earlier for jobs that offer no real future. A very good article was written by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. It was published in the National Post on September 28. Essentially it pointed out that two things are happening due to problems in the system.
One is that the rule that allows people to gain about half a year of EI benefits by catching as little as $2,500 worth of fish has made some young people go into that industry in order to get the EI benefits. This is damaging in two ways. It hurts the young people who then become caught in what many in Atlantic Canada refer to as the EI trap. Instead of going on to school, gaining the skills and training they need to build a strong future for themselves, they are encouraged by these rules to leave school so they can say that they are available for work in order to gain short term benefits. Surely this was not the intention of the EI system. Those are the kinds of perversities that are not addressed at all in this bill. They are hurting a lot of young people and causing concern for a lot of families.
Also, at a time when the fish stocks are decreasing, we have rules that encourage people to get into an industry with declining stocks. What kind of future is that building for people? Not much, but we have a government that is blind to those kinds of perversities, that does nothing to address them and still claims that this bill is helping people in seasonal industries. Clearly that is not a claim that can be sustained at all. In fact, it is hurting the very people that the government is claiming it is helping.
We owe the people of Canada better than that. The bill does nothing to give long term hope for employment and a secure future and skills building to many people across the country. That is what we really want to do.
The minister herself has said that what Canadians want most is to have a job. The bill does nothing to deal with the problem of unemployment, which is severe and disabling in many parts of the country, and the government is silent on providing the help that it says people need, which is a secure job.
We have to conclude that these changes are really driven more by politics than by a desire to help the people who are affected by the EI system, who are most people in the country and proportionately more in parts of the country with low employment.
The bill also violates the principle that government policy and legislation should do the most good for the most people. Most of us would agree that we have to look at the big picture when we are making policies and bringing in legislation. We need to ask ourselves whether the bill actually does look at the big picture, whether it does make an attempt to do the most good for the most people and whether it attempts to deliver more jobs for people, not simply and solely more benefits to cushion, in the short term, the effects of there being an absence of jobs.
The bill is also completely silent on the real needs of Canadian workers who are chronically underemployed or unemployed. The bill provides a few dollars more but will not give any real long term hope. Is that the message we want to send? I ask my friends in the NDP and PC Party, is that what we want to tell people? I ask these people because they represent voters and constituents in that part of the country. Do we want to tell people that we will give them a few more dollars and make the pain a bit less but that we will not give them any long term hope? Is that the message we want to send? That is exactly the thrust of the bill.
There may be some legitimate changes to the EI regulations in Bill C-44 but the long term solution to unemployment surely is training and skills enhancement, not encouraging people to move into dead end jobs. Surely the real solution to unemployment is getting the economic fundamentals right so there is economic prosperity, activity and new jobs are created. The bill contains none of that.
Even with what the bill does contain, which is a few more dollars for people caught in the trap of low employment, no employment or underemployment, it is an insult in light of what the Liberals are taking out of the EI system.
We have a $38 billion surplus in the EI system. If we divided that amount among all of the unemployed workers they could get a university degree, receive training or set up their own businesses. What does the government give them out of that $38 billion surplus that workers and businesses helped to create? It gives them a 15 cent reduction in EI premiums. I have not checked the minister's math, which may or may not be right given the track record of the minister, but she says that a 15 cent reduction will add up to $1.5 billion. At the same time there is a $38 billion surplus. What are the Liberals doing with the other $36.5 billion one might ask?
At the same time, with the Canada pension plan premiums increasing by 40 cents on January 1 there will be a net increase in taxes that workers have to pay when they do work rather than any reduction.
However, the government refuses to look at the big picture and makes small, small-minded, small impact changes to do what? It is to be able to pretend to people that it is responding to their concerns and that it is providing some of the much needed help for which people have been asking. It is a charade. It is a scam. It is not worthy of putting before the Canadian people.
The EI surplus does not belong to the Liberals. It belongs to thousands of business people and millions of workers. We believe that the people who are paying the shot, putting in the money and who have a stake should be making the decisions. I do not think the people putting up all this money every year and who have built up a $38 billion surplus would decide to hand it over to the Liberals to use as they see fit.
There is even law-breaking in the way this EI premium reduction is being managed. The law says that the government can only charge premiums to pay out the current benefits and to build up a little cushion in case unexpectedly high unemployment comes along. The chief actuary of the fund himself has said that the surplus the Liberals have built up is far in excess of what would be needed to meet the requirements of the law. However the Liberals simply ignore their own laws and build up enormous, unjustified surpluses and then use them for whatever they want, which, as we can see, is mostly for their own political gain.
The Canadian Labour Congress said that this year for the first time more EI premiums will go into general revenues of the Liberal government than will be paid out in benefits. In other words, all the money that is being paid by struggling Canadian workers and small businesses who can barely keep their doors open is pouring into the coffers of the Liberal government. It is not helping employment or unemployed workers. It is helping the Liberals. The Liberals are helping themselves to it. That has to stop.
Is there anything in the bill to address the clear violation of what is right and proper? There is not a word. We only have the Liberals saying “We will give you a tiny reduction. Are we not generous? You lucky people who are paying us $10 billion a year more than you are supposed to pay for this program, we will give you a little back. We will give you about 15% back and you should be grateful for that”. That is what the Liberal government is telling Canadian workers. It is an insult and should be seen as an insult.
We believe, and all opposition parties believe, that employers and workers should control what is rightfully theirs. A couple of years ago all opposition party leaders held a joint news conference to make that very point to the government as surpluses in the EI fund rose above any kind of reasonable level. Opposition parties have different ideas on the types of benefits, the levels of benefits and the rates of payment. That is healthy. It is good to have different ideas because we come to a balanced and proper perspective when we share those ideas. However, we are all in agreement that the decisions about how to spend the money that comes out of the workers' pockets and the pockets of struggling small businesses should be made by the people who are putting up the money.
Does the bill address that issue? Not at all. There was a thing called the Canada Employment and Insurance Commission. It was set up to consult with all the people who pay into the system and advise the government on things like levels of EI rates. What does the bill do? It simply toasts the Canada Employment and Insurance Commission. It does an end run around them. It says that cabinet will set the rates directly and that it will also be done next year. What is the EI commission good for? What is it there for? Is its mandate respected? Is the consultation it is doing respected? No.
The EI commission is actually made up of people from labour, from employers, from workers and from all the groups who are affected by the system and yet the commission is simply being ignored, disregarded and an end run done around it by the government in the legislation.
Far from the government respecting the people who are paying the freight of this program, the government is ignoring and running roughshod over the representatives of these groups that are on the Canada Employment and Insurance Commission. This is a bad bill for so many reasons, and that is just another one.
The bill will hurt in several ways, as I pointed out. It allows companies to structure the way they operate to take maximum benefit of EI. It does not encourage businesses to find ways to operate in the full season and allow people to have long term, stable jobs. It encourages just the opposite. How does this help people? It cannot. It does not encourage the kind of break that people are asking for from dependence on short term assistance programs and over to what they really want, which is long term employment of which they can be proud, on which they can raise their families and on which they can build a future.
I recommend to the House an article by Fred McMahon who for a long time worked with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. This article was published on October 2 in the Ottawa Citizen . He essentially said that the EI system has harmed many regions of the country and that it has created a trap for many people. Surely that is a tragedy that must be addressed but it is not.
We need to be more compassionate than that. We need to look at what is happening to people who have no hope other than a few more dollars once in a while on the eve of an election from a Liberal government. We need to look at what can be done to provide strong economic growth and activity in parts of the country where people are unemployed or underemployed. We believe that the answer to that is in the Alliance's policies of actually letting people keep the money they earn. What a novel idea. When we earn money, the government will not actually take it away from us. It will let us keep it to create jobs, to buy consumer goods, to build our businesses, to invest in skills, to fund education and to do the things that will create a strong economy.
That is not just pie in the sky. We have many examples across the world of economies that have done exactly that. They have significantly reduced the government grab of earnings from companies, entrepreneurs and workers and their economies have soared. Ireland is a prime example of that. There are many states in the U.S. that have significantly reduced taxes and seen a huge increase in the number of jobs available for their citizens.
If we want to look closer to home, we can attest to the fact that these measures do not just work in other countries. They also work here. The provinces of Alberta and Ontario, which have significantly cut taxes, have seen job opportunities for their citizens absolutely go through the roof. And what does the government do? It increases its tax take, or reduces it by such minuscule amounts that it has no appreciable effect on the overall level of economic activity.
We believe that our policies, which we will be putting to the people in the election, will actually secure jobs for hundreds of thousands of unemployed and underemployed workers. They will also pour millions of dollars into the economy in a positive way without any political tainting, without any perverse effect on the economies which desperately need that kind of infusion. Instead of a few dollars in handouts mostly tied to political patronage and political profiteering by the Liberal government, it would be money spent in the common sense way by workers, businessmen and entrepreneurs. That is what we need to be working for in this country.
The bill also violates the principle of public interest over self-interest. What we have here, as one person described to me today, is a knee-jerk policy decision designed solely to get votes.
I have given so many reasons today, and I know that other speakers to the bill will give even more, why the bill does not represent big picture policy to benefit the people most affected. It represents an 11th hour, quick vote buying kind of initiative by a government that should be ashamed of itself. That government says that it cares about people, that it values people. It did not care about the people who were affected by the EI changes over the last four years. All of a sudden are we supposed to believe that the bill is motivated by real caring? I do not think so.
This is simply the Liberal government indulging in some very cynical and reprehensible vote buying, vote manipulating policy making. It is an insult to every person affected. It suggests that people who are most affected and most needy, and to whom even a few dollars would mean an awful lot, can be bought right before an election. It is so cynical and insulting.
The Liberal government should be ashamed of itself. I appeal to Liberal members to vote against this kind of ad hockery in public policy making on the eve of an election. The people in the country who are the most needy and have the biggest difficulty in finding long term stable employment deserve far better than this and we should give it to them.
There is also a lot of evidence which I believe must come out in debate, in the committee hearings, in letting people speak, that in the long run these kinds of measures will hurt more than help regularly unemployed workers. It is a tiny, tiny bit of short term gain but so much long term pain in a system that is fundamentally flawed. It does not address the real needs of workers, which are for real work, real economic opportunity and real relief from chronic dependence on politicians and what they may or may not give.
We have seen the politicians over there take away, then give back a little, then take away some more. Surely we can do better for people than to play those kinds of games with them, their futures and their families. They deserve better. I am appalled that the Liberal government has done such a cynical, shortsighted, inadequate job of addressing those issues.
All employed workers are going to carry the freight for this, whether they are part time, seasonal, or full time in low paying jobs. The money comes straight out of their pockets and out of the pockets of their employers who would probably like to hire more people but simply do not have the money and resources left after the government is done taxing them to death.
The sad thing is that people who are the least able to pay, people who are the most needy in this system are going to be hurt by these changes. These changes help a few, but mostly those few at the higher end of the income scale.
We have to wonder when there are so many people in the country not able to work full time, not able to find secure employment, why the government cares so little about the real problem that it would insult them with this kind of last minute, short term, small minded tinkering.
This is not a bill that should even have seen the light of day. As the bill is debated and examined in committee, and as people in the public start to see what is in the bill, I believe it will draw an increasing level of opposition and criticism. And so it should because legitimate needs that ought to have been addressed in the EI system and in the bigger picture of employment needs of Canadians simply have been ignored in this bill, or have not been helped, or have been addressed in ways that can only be characterized as mere tinkering, nothing substantive, nothing really helpful to the people who are affected.
I invite Canadians who are watching this debate to listen to the concerns that are brought forward by their representatives and to examine the bill for themselves. It is a very short bill. As I said, it is just a little bit of tinkering on the eve of an election. Consider the bigger issues that will be affecting the employment picture of our country in the years to come, particularly for those that are struggling the most to have the kind of employment prospects that they need for themselves and their family.
This is a bill that violates fundamental principles of sound policy making. It violates the principle of doing the most good for the most people. It also violates the principle of putting public interest before self-interest. The bill should not be supported and I urge members of the House to vote against it unless it is substantially changed. I believe it is so fundamentally flawed that the government should simply go back to the drawing board on this whole issue.