Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak about the most recent federal budget. I could have started this budget critique by talking about how the Minister of Finance has quite deliberately underestimated, once again, the federal surplus for this fiscal year and next.
Because the new Minister of Finance has done exactly the same thing as his predecessor. In fact, he has resorted to the same trickery in underestimating the surplus. Therefore, to a certain extent, he has distorted the democratic debate we should be having here. We do not have a true picture of public finances. How can we judge the relevance and value of government measures, without knowing the real range of possibilities available to this government to benefit the public and serve the public interest?
I could also have talked about those left out of this budget. The most important such group are the self-employed, who are still unable to take advantage of employment insurance. There are also the workers who have suffered from the softwood lumber crisis. And yet, the other side of the House had proposed implementing measures to at least partially bandage their wounds following the Americans' refusal to budge for the past few years.
We could have also mentioned the first nations peoples, who were totally left out. It sounds good to mention them in the throne speech. Aboriginals and their problems have been mentioned in at least three consecutive throne speeches. Each one calls for new arrangements to be negotiated with each nation. But when the time comes to take concrete action, nothing really substantial is offered.
I would like, instead, to talk about a new measure found in this budget which no one has said very much about. From the outside, it might seem very positive, but when one scratches the surface, the reality is rather Kafkaesque. It is in true Kafkaesque tradition.
I am referring to the new employment insurance benefit for compassionate care leave. We have been talking about it for a long time. Even the last Speech from the Throne said that people who decide to stop working for a short period of time to take care of a sick loved one, deserve the chance to do so without penalty.
The last Speech from the Throne gave the example of a mother who has to take care of her sick child. It said that the federal government was prepared to take measures to allow her to provide care without penalty.
The budget includes an initiative that is quite peculiar when examined more closely, and could lead to very dehumanizing, inhumane and cynical situations. On close examination, it does not measure up to be a good program.
For instance, we are told that this compassionate leave initiative will come into effect in January 2004. That is one year from now, which is too late; it is too far away. They also say that a parent will have a maximum of six weeks to take care of a sick child, but are quick to add there will be a two-week waiting period.
In reality, the parent who takes care of a sick child will be entitled to four weeks of benefits. Why is there a penalty? This is beyond comprehension. In the beginning, when you decide to stop working because your child is seriously ill, you should not be penalized for two weeks. Above all, it should not be set out in writing that there is a two-week waiting period. It is an utterly cynical initiative.
In addition—and this is where cynicism is added to sarcasm and insult to injury—we are told that the program is for a parent, a child, or a spouse who will very likely die in the next six months. This is the condition that must be met. In other words, Human Resources Development Canada will require proof that the child you are taking care of will die in six months in order for you to receive net compensation of four weeks of employment insurance, because there is already a two week penalty.
I have questioned the value of such a measure. I wondered about the current procedure. The Employment Insurance Act contains a provision allowing a parent to stop work in order to care for a child. For a number of years now, over-zealous departmental employees have felt this provision entitling people to care for a sick family member was at odds with the one requiring them to be available for work.
I have had recent examples of this in my riding, which have resulted in unbelievable exclusions. For instance, there is the case of the mother of a child with a brain tumour. The child had been ill for a year, but the doctors could not find the cause. The mother herself fell ill from the stress of not knowing. She applied for employment insurance, and normally would have been entitled to it under the current provisions. She had to take her case to the board of referees. The three members were unanimously in favour of her claim, saying she was entitled to benefits to care for her sick child, having fallen ill herself from the stress and worry.
The Human Resources Development administration at Saint-Hyacinthe appealed the decision of the board of referees and took it before an umpire in order to have the case reviewed. Imagine, taking to an umpire a case that had been unanimously accepted by a board of referees concerning benefits to a mother whose child had a brain tumour.
Fortunately, public pressure, and the efforts by my office and by the MAC, a coalition for the unemployed, managed to get the appeal dropped. That was fortunate. But is this much effort necessary every time, is public pressure required just to get people to see common sense? That is the way things are at present.
How is this being replaced? With the program I have just referred to: six weeks, including the two week waiting period, in order to qualify for employment insurance benefits for one or the other parent to look after a seriously ill child, provided they can establish that the child will die within six months. If a program like this is not Kafkaesque, if it is not dehumanizing, if it is not devoid of compassion, then I do not know what it is.
Given what has happened over the last seven years, following this government's EI reforms—and the example I just mentioned proves this—we know quite well that when it comes time to interpret the act over-zealously, and for the local Human Resources Development Canada office to issue cold-hearted correspondence to workers, they are capable of being inhuman.
Will we be seeing notes like the following:
Dear Ms. X,
Since you were unable to establish that your child will die within the reasonable timeframe of six months, we hereby notify you that you do not qualify for compassionate care leave.
Sincerely,
“A bureaucrat”
Is this the type of correspondence we should expect? Those are indeed the eligibility requirements for EI leave to provide care for a child who is seriously ill. That is the type of correspondence that a mother who wants to care for her sick child will receive, because one of the two parents must always make that terribly difficult decision. It is either the mother or the father who will look after the child who will die within six months, but not both. That, too, is incomprehensible.
There is not a scintilla of humanity in what was presented; there is not a scrap of compassion. Imagine the surreal, Kafkaesque administrative straitjacket you find yourself in when you are in the grips of a very dramatic situation, when you are dealing with the blow of fatality, when your child is extremely sick and, on top of that, you have to establish that he or she will die in the next six months.
This should be the kind of correspondence you receive in that type of situation:
You have proven beyond any doubt that the person you wish to provide care for is likely to die in the coming six months. We are pleased to notify you that you qualify for benefits.
That is no way to run a program, void of any compassion, and then call it a special program that was established for compassionate reasons.
Sometimes, I ask myself how the government is running the public administration. It would have been so simple to produce a short memo to HRDC officials and tell them, “from now on, if parents are providing care for a sick child, they will qualify for EI benefits for the maximum number of weeks” rather than coming up with a program that is as Kafkaesque as this one, which tops cynicism with sarcasm.