Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I know I must address the Chair, but I also want to address unemployed Canadians, particularly those from Quebec who are listening and especially the 60% of them who could not benefit from the EI plan. They were excluded for many reasons. That is why many amendments to the bill were requested by the opposition parties.
When a government amends an act as important as the Employment Insurance Act, there are always questions to be asked. First, why is it amending it? Because there are pressing demands, which often come from the opposition parties.
Let us remember that in 1996 the Liberal government made major changes to the Employment Insurance Act, which included the infamous intensity rule. With that rule, seasonal workers were virtually excluded from the plan, to the point where today only 42% of workers who could use benefits are eligible for benefits.
This was a change made in 1996 by the Liberal government. It directly contributed to the increase in the EI fund surplus. Since the 1996 changes, a surplus of $5 billion was added to the fund each and every year. At the present time, this surplus is close to $32 billion.
Once more, in 2001, the Liberal government is proposing a legislative amendment. We should always ask ourselves why the government would change this legislation. The answer should be that it is for the good of the unemployed in Canada, and particularly in Quebec.
We know, of course, that the intensity rule, the purpose of which was to make sure that almost no seasonal unemployed worker could get employment benefits, will be abolished. In ridings such as Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, where 65% of the economy is based on agriculture, forestry and tourism, more workers will be made eligible for employment benefits.
It must be said that this is something the opposition parties have been requesting since 1996. The opposition parties have been asking the government for this for five years.
Finally, it is not the workers of Quebec and Canada who are seasonal, it the jobs that are seasonal. It is not the workers' fault they do not have access to an EI plan.
It must be understood that I am talking about an EI plan. On many occasions I have heard members of the government describe the employment insurance plan as a social safety net. The employment insurance plan has never been a social safety net. It is an insurance paid for entirely, half and half, by the workers and their employers. Since this plan belongs to the employers and the employees in Quebec and Canada, the $31.4 billion surplus belongs to them also.
We would have expected that the amendments to Bill C-2 would include, on top of the elimination of the intensity rule for seasonal workers we wanted, important changes to the plan because it belongs to the employers and the employees in Quebec and Canada.
I will repeat, for the sake of workers and especially the unemployed in Quebec and in Canada who are watching this debate, that the bill does not improve the plan and does nothing to correct the decades old inequities under the Employment Insurance Act.
We still have a waiting period, the infamous two week penalty for workers. They do not get any benefits for these two weeks. They just have to wait.
I find this most unfortunate because it does a lot of damage, in view of the fact that an increasing number of businesses in Quebec, among others, are hit with damage or fires, as a result of which there are temporary closures for many reasons other than the going out of business.
Once again, workers who find themselves without a job overnight because of a fire or other disaster are subject to the qualifying period, the famous two week penalty. They lose the first two weeks and do not receive any compensation in spite of the fact that they bought insurance that they have been paying 50:50 with their employer, an insurance policy called the EI fund. There is still a waiting period.
This is the terminology the Liberal government found to try to convince them to accept this two week penalty. Notwithstanding the fact that they have an insurance, they still have a two week penalty. These two weeks inevitably contribute to increase the fund. This surplus, this revenue from the EI fund, now totals more than $31 billion.
Once again, the bill tabled did not contain any of the amendments put forward by the Bloc Quebecois. This particular amendment was rejected. We still find in the bill the two week waiting period, the penalty the workers are facing for losing their job. Even if the business does not shut down, even after a disaster, they are still subjected to this two week loss, which is used, among other things, to increase the EI surplus. So, there are no major changes.
Let us talk about the $31.4 billion surplus. Why has the government introduced this bill? As members may have guessed, it is because the Liberal Party, the government, covets the $31.4 billion that belongs to workers of Quebec and Canada.
Clause 9 of the bill would allow the government to get its hands on the surplus of the employment insurance fund. The government wants to do that for its own ends, that is to spend the money in any other program it deems appropriate but which will not necessarily serve the interests of workers in Quebec and Canada.
Why does the bill not provide for an independent fund, which would belong, since half of it is paid for by workers in Quebec, to workers as well as employers and which would be administered by workers and employers, who could then choose the appropriate way to use the fund?
Since I only have a minute left, I will use my time to try to promote awareness among members on the other side, who too often take the employment insurance fund, which actually is an insurance fund, for a social security fund. This is where the problem lies.
They want to turn employment insurance into a social security fund, which the government wants to get its hands on and use in a totally different area, which government members call social security, while in fact employment insurance is an insurance fund that belongs to workers and should only be used for them. We should have an independent fund administered by workers, in their own interests.