Madam Speaker, I want to say a few words on Bill C-406, and act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, but before I do I want to congratulate the member for Acadie--Bathurst for bringing forward this bill. I want to congratulate him as well because he is a great defender of the working person, and that is something about which a lot of us here in this assembly should be more concerned, because it is the working person who contributes so much to the economy of our country.
I want to congratulate him as well on the first clause of the bill. The first clause would change the name back to the unemployment insurance act, and I support that. Only under a Liberal government could a piece of legislation providing protection to the unemployed be called an Employment Insurance Act.
However, more than the name of the unemployment insurance system was changed by the Liberals, under the watchful eye of the former minister of finance. Their new employment insurance system doubled and tripled the number of hours required to draw EI and shortened the benefit period, as well while keeping EI premiums relatively high. The net result of the changes, as we are all very much aware, was a radically reduced draw-down on the EI fund. We know what the net result of that was. It created a surplus of about $45 billion, not million, dollars.
There is nothing wrong with having a surplus. One has to prepare for a rainy day, in this case provide for a period of time when we could have very high unemployment, but $45 billion? Do we really need to have $45 billion in the EI surplus? Actually, when we get right down to it of course, less money is needed for a so-called rainy day because the new rules have made it a lot harder on people to receive EI, and as a consequence of that less people can draw employment insurance, or unemployment insurance as I still call it.
Rather than remaining a lifeboat for the nation's unemployed, the EI system became a cash cow for the former minister of finance in his efforts to balance the nation's books. The other two public services that were raided to balance the national budget were the health care system and the post-secondary educational system. Simply put, the former minister of finance, who is to be the next Prime Minister of Canada, rose to political prominence on the backs of the unemployed, the sick and the young. That is how he got there.
There is a lot in this bill that should be supported and should be taken very seriously.
I recently had a visit from the Canadian Labour Congress, and yesterday I had a visit from the Building and Construction Trades Council, two groups of people for whom I have an awful lot of respect. They provided me with some very graphic statistics on the effect of these employment insurance changes just in the riding of St. John's East. I was absolutely astounded.
Back in 1990, for example, 7,530 people in the riding of St. John's East availed of UI benefits. In 2001 only 2,680 people qualified for regular EI benefits, down from 7,530 to 2,680 people who qualified for EI benefits. That is a drop of 64%. I really wish the drop was entirely due to better employment prospects, but it was not. The lion's share of that 64% drop is attributable to the fact that benefits are now harder to get. When we do get benefits, it is for a shorter period of time.
A large portion of that 64% drop represents people forced to seek social assistance or people forced to migrate to other provinces in Canada. There is nothing wrong with going to other provinces for work, but if one happens to be a fisherman or a construction worker 55 or 57 years old, it gets very difficult to move to other provinces without any mobility assistance from the $45 billion fund that the former minister of finance was been able to accumulate.
How much did that drop in people receiving EI benefits in that one little area in the riding of St. John's East represent annually? It represented $69 million in EI benefits. If a person happens to own a major department store or a local corner store, the loss of these revenues from the local economy has to hurt the people in that area.
In short, the Liberal's new employment insurance system was a systematic attack on seasonal employment in rural Canada in general and in Newfoundland and Labrador in particular.
In Newfoundland and Labrador whole communities have been devastated. Whole communities have been depopulated. Seasonal work supplemented by employment insurance used to allow these families to remain in rural Newfoundland, but that does not happen any more.
It is very difficult if a person happens to be a construction worker. The point the construction trades people made to me yesterday, and it was a very valid point, was the moment workers went on a construction job, they began the process of working themselves out of a job. The same applies whether a person is working on a 50 storey steel building, or as a carpenter on a house, or building a road or building a dam. The moment they work on construction jobs, they begin the process of working themselves out of a job.
A bit of respect is required for the people who work in construction in particular. We should not say to construction workers that their contribution to society, to the people and to the economy of the country is such that we can slash their EI rights to the bone, that it does not matter. If they are finished a job and they happen to be 50, 55 or 57 years old, they should not be told they should move somewhere else. Instead we should make it easier for people who work in construction, or in the logging industry or in the fishery. It is very difficult for these people when they find out that the government has absolutely no respect for the contributions they make to the country.
Since the federal Liberals came to power in Ottawa, Newfoundland and Labrador alone has lost 50,000 people. The city of Corner Brook on the west coast of Newfoundland was our province's second city after St. John's. These days Fort McMurray in Alberta is the second largest city for Newfoundland and Labrador.
As I only have a moment or two left, I will wrap it up. It is worthy to note that on the national scale 855,000 Canadians received regular UI benefits in 1990. In 2001 the number who received regular EI benefits dropped to 456,000. Nationally that was a drop of 46%. The government should be ashamed of what it is doing to seasonal workers.