Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank all those who chose to take part in the debate, especially most recently the hon. member for Elk Island who shared his views with us, as well as the hon. parliamentary secretary and the member from the Bloc.
I am pleased with much of the interest shown. I raised this issue as a policy issue that the government should be addressing. We hope that it would be a long term goal, to work toward a more fair and equitable redistribution of the country's bounty and benefits. That means monetary compensation but it also means sharing in the benefit that I have pointed out, that shorter work time equals a quality of life issue for many Canadians.
There is nothing to stop motivated people from working longer hours if their family life permits or if their job demands but as a policy point of view there is no good reason to be going in the wrong direction in terms of the average work week for Canadians. If anything, Canadians are working longer.
The member from Nanaimo mentioned that it is not really a problem because the average person works only 42.5 hours per week. I challenge those figures. Our figures are closer to 46 or 47 hours per week as the average in Canada. In fact in some households there are two people working, so the average household is actually working 60 to 80 hours a week in order to enjoy the same quality of life that one single bread earner used to provide for an average middle class family living.
The analogy I used and will use again is that if ordinary working people gained in the productivity gains the same way CEO compensation went up, the average carpenter would be making $250 an hour and the minimum wage would be $50 an hour. There is more than one way to reflect that compensation. One is to have more time off for leisure.
The Donner commission, a federal government advisory group, noted that there was a major split between those in the workforce who worked long hours for good pay, and were frankly stressed by that, and Canadians who had too little work or had to work two or three part time jobs pooled together to make one reasonable income. Many places in Europe have negotiated shorter work weeks and implemented a combination of policy legislation and negotiations, and have benefited in terms of job creation and increased productivity, not reduced productivity.
I would like to point out some of the things the government could do in respect of policy. The federal government could, without intruding on any jurisdiction, do away with some of the perverse incentives that lead to long hours and overtime. We can change the way payroll taxes, like employment insurance and CPP, are structured by taking away the cap. In other words, if people were to pay those premiums on every hour worked it seems to me employers would probably think twice about having someone work the longer hours.
That is the same principle as overtime. The reason we implemented overtime was not so workers would earn more money but as a disincentive so that employers would not be compelled to cause their workers to work longer hours and, therefore, open up opportunities for other people.
I know this is something the Alliance would object to but I would suggest a tax on all overtime hours be levied on employers. If it were made a revenue neutral thing this could be combined with lower overall payroll taxes. In fact it would be revenue neutral and the employer would not be paying more tax. The disincentive would be working people longer and the incentive would be providing them with a more reasonable work week.
Exemption on the first $10,000 of annual earnings is another thing we have been told would help. An incentive package to reward firms that create jobs would perhaps motivate them to hire more people to do the same amount of work.
I have enjoyed the debate and the input from all groups, and I appreciate the opportunity. However in actual fact working harder is not working for many Canadians. A shorter work week should be an objective of the government.