Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that I will not be saying this evening that the government has stolen the workers' money. It has only taken it without asking.
It is my pleasure to rise to speak on Bill C-280 moved by the hon. member for Manicouagan. This is a very important bill for the House of Commons.
It appears that the employment insurance fund, which has been taken without permission, is something the government is still interested in. The government would still like to take it without asking. I have checked and the words I am now using are proper.
That is why the government has invoked the idea that if there is no royal recommendation the bill will not be accepted. A minority government has to find a back door to do what it cannot do by the front door.
It is unfortunate that the government wants to base itself on a matter of procedure we could call a little loophole, in order to reject the bill from the hon. member for Manicouagan, a bill that is so important for the working people.
Other colleagues have said so. In 1986, it is true that the Auditor General mentioned that it should remain in the consolidated revenue fund. I do not think that when the Auditor General made those remarks he believed that the government would take that money for other purposes. That was not the point at the time. He was saying that it should be there and it should perhaps be better managed. It is now 2005 and we notice that $46 billion has disappeared. That $46 billion amount is made up of the contributions from working men, working women and their employers.
That is why all Canadians, all workers and employers, are worried. We have had meetings of the subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on this topic.
Even the employers have said that this fund has to be removed from the government's hands. It must be taken out of consolidated revenue fund. It is our fund, We pay for that fund. It is insurance for the working people and we are the ones who should look after it, under government supervision; the government's responsibility will be to ensure that the money is truly going in the right direction.
If it were not in the consolidated fund, the government would be more inclined to do the right thing. It will do the right thing and I think we put it back on the right track.
The Auditor General had said to put it in the consolidated fund. Yet, 10 years later, the Auditor said that in the past 3 years the government has come very close to breaking the law. That is where we are today. There should be $15 billion in the employment insurance fund in order to run it properly and we have a $46 billion surplus.
I have to hand it to the government. I hope I am allowed to say so. I find that at least this is a little more honest. They are telling us they used the money for something else. They never used to be so open. At least now they are willing to admit they used the money for social programs or job creation. Finally, they put it on paper. They tell us in black and white that they took the money without asking. They did what they wanted with the money and that is too bad for us.
It is unfortunate and that is where I disagree with the Conservative member. He said he likes the eight proposals made in December and that is the direction they want to take. However, they have problems with the rest and say we must wait.
Workers in Canada have been waiting and suffering for 10 years now. People have been punished for 10 years now. Statistics show that there are 800,000 people paying employment insurance who do not qualify to receive benefits.
In the past 10 years, we have reached a point where there are 1.4 billion children who go hungry in Canada. I maintain that the changes made to employment insurance in 1996 led to this poverty in Canada. These are members of single parent families, who work from morning to night and, when they lose their job, do not qualify for employment insurance benefits. It is usually women who head single parent families. They have a hard time working the required number of hours to be eligible for employment insurance, a program that belongs to them.
In the meantime, as for the business aspect of the issue, I do not agree with the Conservative member when he says this does not create jobs. That is not true.
Most people—let us say between 95 and 99%, not to state that they are perfect—who work from morning to evening in a seasonal pattern, when they receive an employment insurance cheque, do not travel to Florida for a vacation. These people receive their cheque and will spend it in the community. This money ends up in the hands of storekeepers, car sellers, small business owners in the community. This way, it is good for the region.
If one wants to solve the employment insurance problem, it is simple; one has to create jobs. The former Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, said in 1993, when he was in the opposition and Brian Mulroney, of the Conservative party, was heading the country, that one had to solve the employment problem if one wanted to solve the employment insurance problem. That is what he told Conservatives at that time. He said that there was no need to make changes to employment insurance, but rather that there was a need to put in place a stronger economy in order to foster economic development, to invest in regions and to create jobs. People needed to be put to work and, automatically, they would not have to be dependent on employment insurance.
For a change, I agreed with Jean Chrétien; he was right. However, when he came to power, it was as though someone had injected him with something and he had suddenly become a Conservative. Therein lay the problem.
In that connection, he had even sent a letter to an unemployment action group in Trois-Rivières. I have it in my office. That letter says very clearly that the Conservative government was not acting properly at that time. The pity is that he followed in the Conservatives' footsteps. Both parties have the same positions when it comes to workers: they are on the right.
In his speech, a while ago, my Conservative colleague stated that everything was good for the employer, that he could save money while creating jobs. On the other hand, he remained silent on ways by which we could lighten the burden of the employment insurance program so that young people who pay premiums can qualify to receive benefits. This is what is important. It is insurance for which both employees and employers pay premiums, because this latter group is not able to guarantee the former work throughout the 12 months of the year.
For example, no matter in what area of a province a company is, it must pay employer's liability insurance in case a work accident happens. The employer pays the totality of the premiums because he or she must offer a safe working environment where nobody gets hurt. However, when an accident does happen, the employer pays a compensation to the employee so that he or she gets a revenue if that accident forces him or her to stay home.
It is the same thing here. In our great country, we must recognize that we must help each other. I read in a newspaper that in New Brunswick people receive more benefits than what they paid in premiums. That is normal, that is what insurance is all about. It means that the federal government did not do what it was supposed to do in terms of job creation in that province. That is why people are so poor that they must leave their province and their families to look for work in Toronto, Barrie, Niagara Falls or Calgary. It is a shame.
The government should work very hard to make sure that these people have a job and are not forced to rely on employment insurance benefits. That is my opinion. That is the thing to do instead of cutting benefits paid to men and women who lose their job. That is cruel, outrageous and unacceptable. Liberals played a role in that since they adopted Brian Mulroney's line of thought when he was prime minister of Canada and leader of the Conservatives in place.
Once again, the Conservatives of today are not saying that workers should be able to qualify for employment insurance benefits. They prefer to take sides with the big employers and big companies which are far from being poor. Presidents of companies who receive $10 million a year are not poor and I have no pity for them. I am sorry but I must say that frankly and publicly to all Canadians.
On the other hand, I have a great deal of sympathy for the workers who lost their job and found themselves in the street. In the past, we never saw people sleeping in front of Toronto's or Montreal's town hall, but it is something we see now.
Let us hope that Parliament will vote in favour of this bill, because it is very important for the people, the working people in Canada.