Mr. Speaker, I sat here listening to this debate and I am dismayed that the government would actually cater and pander to a vision of the future for this country that is less than what it can be.
I know, and every member in the House knows very well, that seasonal workers do not want to work only part of a season. They do not want to make minimum wage. They do not want to make less than what others make. They want to maximize their potential. They want to work full time and all year long. They want to give their children a better future than they have had.
It is unfortunate that in the context of the employment insurance bill the government is catering to an old way of looking at things. Our party and our party critic have for a long time been putting forth ideas to ensure that the employment insurance plan in the country is fair.
At the end of the day this is a question of balance. It is a question of ensuring that seasonal workers and people who are unemployed through no fault of their own can be taken care of in their time of need. It is also a question of balance for the people who pay into the program, the employer and employee.
We have always striven for, and indeed the government would be wise to look at this, an employment insurance plan that strikes that balance. That is a true insurance program to make sure that in time of need a person will have enough money to live on. They will not be hard done by as members of the NDP and the Conservative Party have mentioned throughout the debate.
It is also a question of ensuring that money is there in the future. The member from the Liberal Party mentioned that. We want that too. However, it is unethical and unfair both to the employer and the employee that the government takes $10 billion out every single year, which is more than what they use. That is nothing more than another tax on the employer and the employee. Rather than that money going into general revenues to be spent as the government sees fit, we feel it would be better to use that money specifically to ensure that those seasonal workers and our workforce as a whole have a better chance to compete in the changing economy in which we live.
We hear very little from the other side about the complex nature of our changing economy, both nationally and internationally. We live in a globalized structure. Information is passing back and forth much quicker. Political and economic shocks are felt very rapidly and quickly by nations around the world because of greater linkages. We also feel them. As a nation, we depend very much upon our ability to export and our ability to export determines our standard of living at home. These shocks affect the pocketbooks of Canadian employers and employees.
We hear very little about the ability for us to maximize our niche as a nation. We hear very little about our ability to deal with the demographic changes of our aging population and immigration. All these things are going to have a profound impact upon our ability to be competitive in a more globalized, more linked international community. As a nation, we are not only competing with the people next door to us, the people down the street, the people in the next province, we are also competing with countries from around the world.
It is incumbent for us as a country, and indeed everybody in the House, to ensure that the employees and employers of the country maximize their potential. Maximizing potential is what I am going to refer to today. My colleague, the critic, has done an excellent job of articulating our position on this view and my other colleagues will do the same.
I want to address a few specific issues that my party and many other members of the House have addressed before. How do we maximize our economy? First, we need to put the EI program on firm fiscal ground. We need to ensure that the moneys paid by the employers and employees are less. This will lessen the tax load. For example, if we lessen the tax burden on the employers and employees, employers would have more money to train their employees. Employers would have more money to hire people.
The Liberal member who just spoke mentioned some ideas on how we could maximize our educational abilities. This is an issue I will get to in the future and which is very important. Unfortunately, there are huge issues that have not been dealt with by the government to this day.
I am going to talk about the issue of taxes. A lot of people are not investing in Canada because we have a far less desirable environment because of high personal and the high corporate taxes.
Some would criticize us and say that we just want to lower taxes for the rich. That is nonsense. An intelligent tax reduction strategy, which is what we have been trying to get, ensures that all people, particularly those in the lower socioeconomic levels, have more money in their pocket. In fact, we have been articulating plans to ensure that those in the lowest socioeconomic groups pay no tax. Why? Having a job is the greatest social program we can have in this country today. I know those seasonal workers out there who are listening would be rather be working full time than have some income supplement program, some gift from the government or some cheque in the mail. They would rather earn it themselves. They could then provide for themselves and their family.
We have been trying to articulate plans for lower personal and corporate income taxes to enable our citizens to be competitive in the global economy. We know the Prime Minister is visiting the president of the U.S., Mr. Bush. We know they are going to talk about some economic issues. Mr. Bush has decided to lower taxes even more. That is going to increase the gap between us and the U.S. which will cause a huge imbalance. Some people would say so what it is just one country. The fact of the matter remains that our nation does 86% of our trade with one country, the U.S. So it matters a whole lot what Mr. Bush does. In many ways it will determine how we adapt to that.
As a nation, we should be getting together to streamline the complex morass of rules and regulations that choke off the ability of the private sector to maximize its ability. In my province of British Columbia repeated business summits have said that rules and regulations are one of the top three reasons why companies cannot maximize their potential. To put it into concrete terms, it means that those companies cannot hire people. They cannot make money. If they made money, they could hire, train and employ people. They could give people a better future than they would have on government assistance.
I would like to talk briefly about the notion of how we can deal with education. I know there has been some mention of it. It goes to the heart of enabling people in underdeveloped areas of our country to work.
As an example, let us look at Ireland. A few years ago Ireland was in a bit of an economic backwater. It eventually said that it was not going to put up with it anymore. It said it was going to maximize its potential as a small nation. What did it do? It lowered taxes, eliminated useless rules and regulations and made an effective investment in education.
The government has been pulling money away from the provinces for education for a long time. We know we are getting into a crisis situation. Not only is there a gap between people who are graduating from high school, and not enough graduating from high school who are literate, there is also a number of students who are graduating from university without necessarily getting some of the skills to be competitive in our economy.
The previous hon. member alluded to a program which I think is very effective. I will cite an example of where it works very well. Germany has taken a very profound long range look at linking businesses with the educational community. Students will have real time opportunities to learn skills in school, be it trades or others, and get real time experience in those areas. By linking up the private sector and the educational sectors, students will have an opportunity to not only develop real time work experience but also have real skills that they can take into the employment sector when they graduate. This works very well.
We also have a lack of infrastructure in schools and trained people to teach our students. With the aging population in our universities, we know there will be an enormous gap in professors who can train the youth of today.
We have made proposals about EI. One is to give enough money to businesses so they can to train their employees. Businesses have repeatedly said that it will be up to business in the future to train and retrain their workforce.
It is not always up to the government. If we do that, people in the workforce today and tomorrow will be able to continually keep their skills upgraded and be competitive in the ever changing global economy I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. They can only do that if employers have the money in their pockets.
There should also be a review of barriers to trade. It is extraordinary that in this day and age, in the 21st century, we have more barriers to trade east-west than north-south. How could that possibly be so? It speaks to a complete lack of action of the government since it was elected to deal with one of the major problems for trade and commerce, interprovincial trade barriers.
The government should immediately strike a task force with business to see how it can eliminate those barriers to trade. The provinces must be brought into that and the government must work together with them. If it does that, it will eliminate one of the most profound and useless impediments by ensuring our employers have the tools to be the best they can be.
Another area we can talk about is ensuring that the government of the day works with the provinces to deal with not only land use issues but labour and employment policy. We have to take a long hard look at the employment and labour rules under provincial jurisdiction to ensure that they are not barriers to trade.
The Liberal member spoke about the unfair situation where individuals trained in certain skills could not take their skills across the country. That is a major impediment to individuals and is a barrier to the movement of manpower across our nation. It is another impediment to the nation maximizing its abilities.
In closing, for years our party proposed solutions to ensure that we were able to strike a balance in the employment insurance plan. That balance not only protects workers against unemployment through no fault of their own, but it ensures that employers can have the tools and the money to train workers and be competitive internationally and nationally. If we do not do this, employers will only be catering to the lowest common denominator and to a level of mediocrity. That would be a shame. There is much more that we can do.
