Madam Speaker, Bill C-44 calls itself an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act. I think the Liberals should be honest. They should call it what it is. It is an act that is intended to tinker with the EI system so that they can buy back some of the votes of the millions of Atlantic Canadians who abandoned the Liberal Party out of rage and fury for the Liberal Party abandoning them. Pre-election cynicism is what it really is. It is no wonder that Canadian voters get cynical about the electoral process. They can surely see right through this.
Bill C-44 is an insult to Canadian workers. It is an insult to building trades workers, Atlantic fisheries workers and forestry workers all across the country. Workers should be offended. They are calling my office and telling me that they are offended because the Liberal Party did not listen to the experts on this issue. The experts are there. The experts have done the research. They have made that research available and the Liberals have chosen to ignore it.
Nobody in the country knows more about EI than the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst who did a cross-country national tour consulting with Canadians. The Liberals chose to ignore that. The national building trades council has studied every aspect of unemployment insurance and made reasonable, balanced recommendations and the Liberals ignored that. The Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Manufacturers Association, industry representatives from labour and management have told the government that the EI system is broken, the wheels have fallen off and it does not work anymore and the Liberals still have chosen not to fix it.
If the Liberals were honest they would change the name of the employment insurance fund because to use the word insurance is fraudulent in itself. The word is misleading and deceptive. It should really be called the Liberals' big cash cow because that is what it has been in the years since they made the devastating changes to it. What were the changes?
In my riding alone, $20.8 million a year has been sucked out. Already it is the third poorest riding in the country just because of these EI changes. What happens to these people? They get pushed on to provincial welfare. It is a way for the federal government to offload its responsibilities to provide income maintenance and insurance on to the provinces which then have to pay city welfare. It is no wonder people are furious.
The bill tinkers with the EI problems. It does two things. It eliminates the intensity rule. Big deal. The member for Acadie—Bathurst pointed out how insignificant and trivial that is. The bill changes the clawback provision back to where it used to be, not to improve it, not even all the way back. It used to be that EI did not get clawed back unless a person made $63,000 a year. Then it went down to $48,000. Then it went down to $39,000. Now it is being put back up to $48,000 and the government expects us to celebrate.
Two things that really cost Canadian workers are the divisor rule and the eligibility rule. They have been structured so nobody qualifies for EI anymore, but everybody has to pay into it. It is no wonder there is a surplus, a $750 million a month surplus. No, I was not heard incorrectly; that is per month, not per year. The amount of $750 million per month is being taken out of the system by the Liberals and it is not being put back into income maintenance where it belongs. What kind of insurance policy is that?
What if someone were forced to pay insurance on a house year after year and when the house burned down the person had a less than 35% chance of ever collecting any insurance benefit on it? That is no longer an insurance policy.
To deduct something from a person's paycheque for a specific purpose and to use it for something entirely different in the best case scenario is a breach of trust and in the worst case scenario is out and out fraud. The Liberals have been perpetrating this fraud on Canadian people all these years and milking it for every cent it is worth. Thirty-four billion dollars that should have gone into income maintenance for the people who arguably need it the most, the unemployed workers, have gone to pay down the deficit. This is a misuse of funds and a breach of trust. It is dishonest and I say it is out and out fraud.
I do not think I have to explain the divisor rule. Every working person in this country knows the EI system and knows what the divisor rule is. That is what has really cost workers. The dead weeks are factored in when averaging out the benefit. It used to be the benefit would be calculated by averaging out the weeks worked. Now it is averaging out all of the weeks in the previous 26 weeks even if the person did not work in those weeks.
I used to represent the carpenters union. A couple of years ago members of the carpenters union would make $400 or $450 a week as their EI benefit, 55% of their gross earnings. Now with the divisor rule which factors in the dead weeks, the amount is $180 or $220 week, almost 50% less.
With the tinkering that goes on, the Liberals chose very selectively the two things that are not going to cost them squat. The government will still have a gross surplus of funds that will not go into an EI fund because that is a misnomer, but into general revenues for the government to use for whatever it wants. That is where the breach of trust comes in.
My party did a comprehensive brief on this issue. I see it on the desk of the member for Acadie—Bathurst. It is a well developed, comprehensive document that was the result of a national cross-country tour. We received input from concerned citizens from all walks of life, not just labour, but management as well who are very concerned about our dysfunctional, completely broken EI system. The government chose to ignore those meaningful recommendations.
The building trades council arguably has the most knowledgeable people on the EI issue in the labour movement because it directly affects so many of its 400,000 members. It had a good seven point plan with realistic proposals that would have made the system work. In other words, the money taken off paycheques would go toward income maintenance or training, one or the other. None of these things were picked up.
Even the detail about apprenticeship has been ignored by the government. When I was going through my apprenticeship the first two weeks of an EI claim were paid. It was not treated like an unemployment insurance claim; it was a training benefit. That aspect of the EI fund was very beneficial. Using EI money, seats were purchased at the community college. Now apprentices are charged tuition at community colleges as if they were going to university or something.
Again in a situation where the fund is showing a surplus of $750 million a month, how does the government justify squeezing that last little bit out of something like the apprenticeship system? It is unconscionable. I am really horrified by the whole thing.
People thought with some optimism that leading up to an election they could expect some improvement, that the Liberals would make it right again. They thought they could expect the Liberals to use the money that is deducted from their paycheques honestly. What do we get? Instead of real improvements, we get this little package, Bill C-44, with tiny tinkering steps that will not benefit very many workers.
Thirty-five per cent of unemployed people quality for benefits, 25% of women. There is a huge gender bias in the current EI system which the Liberals have failed to address as well.
Less than 15% of unemployed youth qualify for EI, even though under the new hours bank system contributions are credited by hours. Youth working part time have to pay in. They never had to pay in before if they worked under a certain number of hours per week. Now everybody has to pay in but there is a less than 15% chance of ever collecting any benefit.
It ceased to be an insurance program a long time ago. It is dishonest and disingenuous to call it such any longer. Let us call it what it is. It is a cash cow. It is a transparent attempt to buy back some of the votes of the good people of Atlantic Canada who so resoundingly rejected the Liberal Party for being so callous and indifferent to them in the first place.
The Liberals take money off a worker's cheque for heaven's sake and use it to pay down the deficit or to give tax breaks to the wealthy. As I have said before, it is like some perverted form of Robin Hood, to rob from the poor and give to the rich. That is what we are witnessing here. Incredibly that is what we are watching the Liberals do but we will not stand by idly. Fortunately I think we are going into an election and that will give us a platform to expose those guys, to expose this travesty, to expose what they have done to Atlantic Canada and what they seek to do again by buying these votes back. The electorate is very knowledgeable these days. People read the newspapers and watch television. People pay attention to their paycheques first and foremost. They know what is going on.
When I was a practising carpenter I paid $45 every paycheque to EI and my employer paid 1.4 times that amount. That is a lot of money. Of every paycheque, $80 or $90 was being paid into the fund on my behalf in case of the unfortunate situation that I would become unemployed and would require income maintenance.
Where is all that money going? The Minister of Finance stands and crows about paying down the deficit. He is paying down the deficit on the backs of unemployed workers. Are the Liberals proud of that? They will not be for long. As soon as we get on the doorsteps in the coming election they will not be proud of that. We will ram it down the Liberals' throats, especially in Atlantic Canada. I almost wish I were running in Atlantic Canada. It would be a cakewalk. It would be fun to remind people of what those guys have done to them over and over again. People will not need much reminding. It is a top of the mind issue. It is first and foremost. The Liberals will pay a political price, mark my words.