Mr. Speaker, like those who have already spoken in this debate, I too am very pleased that we have this proposition before us today. I want to add my congratulations to the member for Ahuntsic for the initiative in introducing the motion to the House.
At the outset, I want to indicate my support for the motion and echo the words of members of all sides of the House in urging the House to adopt the motion as quickly as possible.
This is pretty basic to what we are all about in this place. We are talking about indexation of a benefit that helps families in times of unemployment. We are talking about the policy that should have been part of the government's initial proposition, its initial program revamping back in 1996. Its absence was clearly either an oversight or an indication of the government's lack of commitment to address the needs of low income families and particularly the needs of women in our society today.
I was particularly excited about the fact that so many members in the House today are recognizing and addressing this issue from the point of view that most of the beneficiaries of this family supplement, of this program, are women. They make up the bulk of the low wage workforce in Canada today.
I want to indicate my support and suggest that this debate be not only a time to agree with the motion but also be a time to look at the broad range of issues facing women in the newly revamped EI program today.
As others have said, the family supplement was introduced back in 1996 as part of some extremely controversial changes to the EI program, some changes that we have taken great exception to in the House. Many would say that the family supplement was simply a sop to those who were hurt by those changes and it was a way to make some otherwise very egregious changes to the program more palatable.
Having said that, and notwithstanding the motivations around this aspect of the EI program, we must all recognize of course that it does add important income support to low income EI recipients. There is no question about that. In terms of the roughly 183,000 people who are affected by this program, this helps top up the income and takes them from about 55% of job income to about 80%, so it is important.
However the fact of the matter is that today, just as it was the day it was introduced, to qualify total family incomes must be under $25,921. The critical issue here today is the fact that there has been no indexation to reflect cost of living, the fact that more and more families are losing out on the benefit because of the absence of an indexation policy.
Let us be clear. The family benefit supplement does not replace an adequate, full employment strategy. The family benefit does not compensate for the inadequate basic level of employment insurance. What it does do, and this has been outlined in the 2001-02 monitoring and assessment report issued in March of this past year, is raise the weekly EI benefit income to over 187,000 recipients, three-quarters of whom are women. It is important to recognize that this program is of specific importance to women who make up the bulk of Canada's low wage earners.
I want to reiterate the fact that this is a self-evident proposition, if we look at the fact that indexation is a part of so many other programs. It has been recognized as an absolute necessity for programs that support Canadians in terms of income and economic security. The Canada pension plan, guaranteed income supplement, child tax benefit, to name a few, are indexed to the cost of living.
The report to which I just referred, which was issued in March of this year, shows the negative impact that the lack of indexing is having. I want to quote from that report. It states:
--the proportion of beneficiaries receiving the Family Supplement declined from 10.7% to 9.7%, which is attributable to family income increasing while the Family Supplement threshold remains fixed at $25,921.
Specifically, if we look at it relating to EI maternity and parental benefits, 22% of maternity recipients and 21% of parental recipients receive the family supplement. That means, taking this report into account, in 2001-02 the number of those receiving maternity benefits together with the family supplement declined by 0.7% and those receiving parental benefits declined by 1.1%.
This has to be taken into account. The decline can be traced to family income increasing while the family supplement thresholds remains fixed. The fact that the family supplement was not indexed from the beginning is indicative of the government's half-hearted attitude toward employment insurance and its reluctance to make changes that are meaningful to low income Canadians, particularly women in low wage, part time and irregular work situations.
That brings me to my final point as part of this debate, which is the failure of the employment insurance system to meet the needs of women today. The indexation issue is an important one. We would hope the government would act on it immediately, but the indexation of benefits is a moot point to those many working Canadians who do not qualify for benefits at all. Only 38% of unemployed workers qualify for benefits from the program supposedly established for their benefit.
I want to reference again a recent study by the Canadian Labour Congress earlier this month which showed that the government's changes to the employment insurance system actually increased women's disadvantage. The gender gap between women and men receiving benefits has almost doubled. A status of women study earlier this year shows that the EI system has failed to adequately protect the growing number of women in part time and irregular or non-traditional employment situations. We only have to look as far as the Kelly Lesiuk case for members to appreciate the significance of this point. Kelly Lesiuk is the mother from Winnipeg who was working part time and had to take time off to look after a newborn child who was born earlier than expected. The government refused to allow her to collect employment insurance to help her through that time. Why? Because she was short a few hours, even though she had shown a clear attachment to the labour force over a period of time.
EI income support is becoming more critical as unemployment is again rising under this government with no sign of it on the government's agenda of the new, soon to be announced leader of the government. Certainly it is not among the priorities listed, as we heard this week, in the former finance minister's speech.
New Democrats in the House will be on the government's case, the government under the former finance minister, about this issue, just as we have pressed his predecessor and the former finance minister when he was directing fiscal policy.
Finally, let us not forget that it was under the direction of the bride to be that the EI fund built up most of its $40 billion surplus to the neglect of those excluded from coverage or those who needed training to stay in the employment game. Let us be clear about that. Let us get on with this indexation motion and work to ensure that our EI system is of benefit to all Canadians, particularly women who desperately try to juggle work and family responsibilities and who have been ignored so much by the government.