Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be able to speak to Bill C-2 at report stage, not so much for the amendments that are included therein, apart from the one on clause 9, but rather because the debate in committee clearly demonstrated that Bill C-2 did not meet the needs of those who appeared before the committee.
Instead of putting forward an indepth reform of the employment insurance plan, Bill C-2 proposes no more than a few amendments that have been called for for a long time, particularly the suppression of the intensity rule. Since 1997 this rule penalizes all seasonal workers. We are telling them that if we take away 1% of their benefits every 20 weeks, they should be more encouraged to work.
The government always assumed that seasonal workers preferred to collect EI instead of working. After denouncing that for many years, a statistical study finally proved that there was no correlation between the two.
Workers in seasonal industries want to work but unfortunately their jobs do not last the entire year, and the fact of penalizing these people by taking away up to 5% of their benefits after three years would not in any way make them work any harder as there were no more jobs for these people.
These people often work in natural resources such as forestry, fisheries, tourism or in areas where they cannot be readily trained for work in other sectors.
Bill C-2 did not really meet the requirements set out by over 60 groups that systematically came to tell us it was vital to reform the system much more thoroughly. Fortunately the committee unanimously adopted a motion I proposed, which provides:
That the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities report to the House of Commons all other amendments to the Employment Insurance Act and that this report be tabled to the House no later than June 1, 2001.
The committee will do the work the government refused to do during the period between the election and the reconvening of parliament. The government could have avoided this delay of several months and introduced a Bill C-2 that really reformed the employment insurance system. It did not do so, but all members of the committee assumed their responsibilities, listened to the evidence presented and clearly said they wanted to recommend other changes to the employment insurance system.
Obviously the current bill must be improved as much as possible, and this is what we are doing with the amendments proposed. There is one that is much more important, and we will discuss it later. It concerns the elimination of clause 9, the one that would, if the bill were passed as it stands, make it legal to misappropriate funds from the employment insurance fund.
We know that it has now grown to between $34 billion and $35 billion. With the provision in the bill that would allow the government to set the premium rate instead of letting the EI commission do it, the government could evade the application of the act and not have to put the money back in the EI fund.
When we get to the discussion on this clause, people will see that all the opposition parties have a common position in this regard, a position set out by the Bloc Quebecois but also supported by the auditor general who stated in committee that he preferred section 66 of the current act, in spite of its weaknesses, to this clause, which would allow the government to determine the premium rate.
We are at report stage on a bill we have to improve as much as possible, a bill we were unable to amend substantively to really reform the employment insurance system because this is impossible at the parliamentary level. Once Bill C-2 was introduced we could only amend its clauses as they stood.
For instance, we are not allowed to deal with important issues such as eliminating the waiting period. Those who have been on employment insurance know what we are talking about. It is the first two weeks after one has stopped working, when one has no income. That is an archaic rule dating back to the time when people qualified only after a number of weeks of benefits. Now they start paying premiums from their first hour of work. We have a system that is generating a huge surplus, so why could we not deal with this issue and eliminate the waiting period?
There is also, the fundamental issue of the creation of an independent EI fund. I think this will give rise to a major debate that should be held in committee for its June 1 recommendations.
There is the increase in coverage from 55% to 60%. We know we now have an employment insurance system where about $18 billion in premiums is collected year after year and about $12 billion is put back into the system. There is a surplus of about $6 billion, which is used to cover the government's general expenditures. This is being done by collecting premiums from people earning wages or a salary of less than $39,000. This means that people earning more, or those who do not pay into the system, do not contribute their share toward this portion of the government's general expenditures.
The government, considers the EI system as a payroll tax. This is a very regressive tax, because not everyone pays into the system. Even though he had been a member of parliament for about 20 years, it is here in the House that the Prime Minister found out that he pay, EI premiums. Such people are not paying their share. There should be a substantive debate on this issue to ensure that since the surplus is so high premiums are lowered or the conditions that apply in the system are improved.
There is a basic condition that could be amended: benefits could be raised from 55% to 60% of average earnings.
All discrimination against youth, women and people re-entering the workforce must be eliminated.
Bill C-2 does not change anything in the requirement to work 910 hours to qualify. The government's logic is the same here as with the intensity rule. It is saying to young people “If the requirement is 910 hours, you will have to work harder to qualify”. Under the intensity rule it said “If benefits are reduced, people will be more anxious to work”.
Statistics show this was not the case with the intensity rule. We know from experience that it is not true for young people and that today they are the victims of intolerable discrimination.
It is important that we revisit this issue before long because we have no right to discriminate against our young people. We have no right to treat them like second class citizens, particularly as we are experiencing a period of economic growth. They must be able to reap the benefits of the effort that has been made to fight the deficit. We must not continue to take their money from them since they contribute right from the first hour of work without qualifying. Only some 25% of our young people qualify for benefits.
As far as all the conditions are concerned, these are examples of issues that should have been dealt with in Bill C-2 but were not. That shows the extent to which a thorough reform of EI is needed to make it more adequate.
Many amendments were proposed but they were rejected. I give the example of the retroactivity of the intensity rule. According to our proposal, the retroactive period would have gone back to January 1, 1997, instead of to October 1, 2000.
In other words, since it has been clearly established that rule was inefficient and that its only result was to penalize seasonal workers and frequent claimants, why not give these workers their money back? It is becoming obvious that they have been penalized without reason and that they should have received that money.
We introduced an amendment to make the payment retroactive to January 1, 1997, but the government rejected it because it would cost $250 million, which is not even 1% of the $35 billion surplus. If that is so much money for the government, think what this represents for seasonal workers, for people who contributed to the financing of the government due to an infamous and unacceptable rule.
That is the reason Bill C-2 must be amended. Everybody must realize that in the next few months the Standing Committee on Human Resources will be making a special effort to make recommendations for a thorough reform of EI to the government, one that will go a lot further than this half-baked Bill C-2.