Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to my party's motion to close a gap in Canada's employment insurance program. I will be splitting my time, and am pleased to do so, with the member for Churchill.
This motion addresses one aspect of the problems faced by Canadian workers, who the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst has defended tirelessly since he first came to this House eight years ago and for whom I have the utmost respect.
Members of the House know that in regions all across the country from coast to coast to coast there are communities that suffer from endemic unemployment. Seasonal economies simply make it difficult for men and particularly women of those regions to find long term and stable income that will sustain their families. As the seasonal work cycles ebb and flow, many workers will simply not qualify for EI benefits because of the limitations of their seasonal jobs.
A number of affected workers are women and aboriginals. Many of them are among the most vulnerable in our workforce and often have minimum wage jobs. After all deductions are made, their net pay is only 55% of their salary. Try to imagine how it is possible for a family to live with only 55% of the minimum wage.
It is high time for the Government of Canada to take measures to resolve these systematic injustices.
By calculating benefits based on the best 12 weeks of work instead of 14, we would, in effect, be reducing the period without employment that currently reduces the amount of benefits received. This is a much fairer and more equitable approach.
In recent years, the EI system has moved further away from actually helping the people who it was meant to protect. When only 35% to 40% of workers qualified for the benefits that they paid for, there is clearly a problem with the program. These are the individuals who are paying for the program and yet they do not qualify when they need its help. Something is wrong.
For 12 years, Canadians have listened to Liberal rhetoric on EI reform. During each election, the Liberals pledge to correct the failings of the EI system, but after each election the Liberal governments quickly forget the very commitments that they made to workers and their families. We have seen it time and again.
The Liberals know that their policies are causing great harm to workers in many parts of the country but they simply will not act to bring about real change even when the evidence and the recommendations are right before their eyes and even when some of their own members have participated in the creation of those recommendations.
The Liberals like to argue that calculating the benefits based on 14 weeks is an incentive for workers to keep working as though these hard-working men and women have some kind of a choice. The government would have Canadians believe that it is the workers in seasonal jobs who are hooked on employment insurance. It is a destructive, patronizing, negative attitude toward the working people who do the work that we all need done in our society.
It is not the workers it turns out who are hooked on EI. Far from it, it is the federal government. It has discovered a source of revenue so it can give away its large corporate tax cuts and carry on with that sort of program. Forty-six billion dollars in the EI slush fund, whose money is that? It is the money that belongs to the workers. It was put in the fund for the benefit of the workers when they most need it, when their families have been forced out of work, because of no decision by the worker but because, in this case that we are talking about today, of the seasons of work coming and going and they simply do not have a paycheque.This is the system that they paid into to help ensure they would have a little bit of income so that when their children came home from school they would put a meal on the table. That is what we are talking about.
The government continues to inject hundreds of millions more into the system as a result of contributions by workers. The NDP is not alone in calling for changes. The Auditor General has continued to demand that the government reform EI.
The fact is that there are many jobs that must be done in this country, jobs that we all expect will be done, but those jobs can only be done during particular times of the year. Let us take the fishery and farms in Nova Scotia, the crab industry in Newfoundland or the fishery on the north coast of British Columbia as examples. Workers there must work as the seasons permit and then they have to find other employment in the interim months. It is a really tough process.
Where that is not possible, our motion proposes a more equitable access to those workers to receive sufficient benefits to help them get by until the next season. We cannot harvest the crops or the snow crabs in January and we can do nothing to change that. Unless we are saying that we do not want such industries to exist at all, then we need a system that allows families to get by if they are unable to find other work.
We are not the only ones to recommend this. It was recommended by a standing committee consisting of all parties that travelled the country and heard witnesses from across the country.
The forestry industry is facing the same situation. Be it in The Pas, Manitoba, Charlevoix, Quebec, or Prince George, British Columbia, forestry workers are finding themselves out of work during the off season.
We are simply proposing to do right by them.
Tourism is an expanding industry in a number of regions in Canada and draws hundreds of thousands of tourists. This is good, but not many sites are able to attract visitors 12 months a year. From Summerside to Sault Ste. Marie to Whitehorse, when the information kiosks, tourism attractions, historic sites and festivals close for the season, we should provide these workers with EI benefits so they can make ends meet until the next tourism season.
The motion is not sweeping in scope. It does not, by any means, correct all the various problems with the employment insurance program. It simply takes one important initiative that had been brought forward in a recommendation from a standing committee in an effort to see it adopted by the House, to get something done.
However it is a very important change because it is a change that can happen now and it is a change that would affect workers and they could see the results immediately, not years from now. It would address the needs of some of those most in need in our society. It is a modest step forward but it is an essential step in a long battle to expand the access to employment insurance, to make it fair and to improve the benefits that these workers have earned.
There are always some people who do not qualify under every major federal programs such as EI. Today's motion seeks to fix these flaws and assist the thousands of Canadians living in regions hard hit by unemployment and working, of necessity, in industries that do not provide year-round employment.
It is going to help people out. It is not going to replace full reform but it is a positive step for Canadians.