Mr. Speaker, the bill before us, I will recall for the benefit of the people watching us today, increases from 15 to 50 the maximum number of weeks during which benefits may be paid for illness, injury or quarantine. Actually part of the title of this employment insurance bill is “benefits for illness, injury or quarantine.”
I indicated a while ago that we are delighted that a Liberal member of Parliament has tabled this bill. This shows some progress concerning the understanding of the issue and probably the degree of compassion we may feel for people who are victims of illness, a work accident or quarantine for contamination or some other reason.
The Bloc has worked constantly with a view to improving the employment insurance program, as our colleague indicated awhile ago. Since 2005, many measures have been proposed in the House, most of which have been rejected, particularly by the government then in place. We were hoping for progress of course with this new government in order to improve the situation of people who have the misfortune of being away from work because of illness, accident or quarantine.
One of the proposed measures appears in the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, namely recommendation 27. It reads as follows:
The Committee recommends that the government study the possibility of extending sickness benefits by 35 weeks for those who suffer from a prolonged and serious illness.
In other words, with an extension of 35 weeks beyond the 15, we get the 50 weeks proposed by our colleague in his bill.
It is interesting to note, however, that the Liberals are suddenly becoming concerned about unemployment. I do not particularly wish to attack the member, because he took this initiative, but my earlier question was to this effect: how is it that once a party in government is defeated it suddenly becomes sensitive to such situations? Actually the context, that is, the workers’ situation, was the same barely a year ago, when we submitted this recommendation to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
The Bloc Québécois has always been in favour of a substantial improvement to the entire employment insurance program, which of course includes amendments to the number of weeks of sick leave for absences caused by illness, accidents and quarantine.
The following is a history of the last two years. I want to remind the House briefly to provide some context.
On November 15, 2004, our colleague, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières, introduced Bill C-278 proposing those improvements to the system. The party in power at the time, the Liberals, opposed royal assent.
On December 13, 2004, Senator Pierrette Ringuette, a member of the Task Force on Seasonal Work appointed by the Prime Minister of the time, issued her dissenting report entitled “Dissent and Distress”, a very meaningful title in view of the situation facing the unemployed.
On December 16, 2004, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities issued the first part of its report with the recommendations I just mentioned. This report was completed on February 15, 2005 and contained 28 recommendations.
On February 23 of the same year, the then Minister of Human Resources announced three minimal new measures to try to mitigate the problems facing regions that suffer from what is commonly called the seasonal gap or black hole.
Finally, on April 15, 2005, the Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (Employment Insurance Account and premium rate setting) and another Act in consequence, which my colleague from the Basse-Côte-Nord sponsored. The purpose of this bill was to create an independent employment insurance fund.
I remember the Conservatives promising during the last election campaign to create this independent fund, but they still have not done it.
In May of this year, the Bloc introduced Bill C-269, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (improvement of the employment insurance system), to change employment insurance. I hope that our colleagues will vote in favour of this bill, and I hope that the Conservatives will not invoke royal assent this time.
More recently in October, this week in fact, we introduced Bill C-344, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (Employment Insurance Account and premium rate setting) and another Act in consequence to create and establish an independent fund.
As can be seen, the Bloc has never stopped demanding improvements to the independent employment insurance fund. But all we have ever received are systematic refusals from each succeeding government.
I would like to return to how much we need the bill we are discussing and describe the situation in which people find themselves when they must be absent for the reasons covered by the bill.
In 2004 and 2005, the number of applications for sickness benefits increased by 0.1% to reach 294,350. Total sickness benefit payments increased by 4.5% to reach $813 million, while average weekly sickness benefits were $285. Hon. members talked about the costs earlier, although they have not changed very much.
People do not live very comfortably and do not go to restaurants very often on this amount of money. There was a 1.7% increase in comparison with 2003 and 2004. The average number of weeks over which sickness benefits are paid has remained relatively stable over the last few years.
During the years I mentioned, claims for sickness benefits have decreased among men. This is interesting to note because it allows us to see who ends up in certain situations and who has to stop working because of an illness or an accident. Those who are most vulnerable—either in terms of the insecurity of their employment or their working conditions—are women and older workers. During that time frame, this decreased by 1.2% in men and increased by 1.1% in women, even though the proportion of women who filed claims for sickness benefits remained relatively stable in 2004-05.
Women continued to file the majority of the claims for this type of benefit, at 59%. Claims for sickness benefits decreased by 2.8% among young people 15 to 24 and by 2.9% among workers 25 to 44, whereas they increased by 3.5% among workers 45 to 54 and by 7.1% among workers over 55. This confirms what I just said: certain categories of workers are more vulnerable than others because they are put in more precarious situations to do their work.
In closing, since I have just two minutes remaining, I want to reiterate that the bill currently before us is important. I am calling on the Conservative Party, which is now in power and whose attitude toward workers has been consistently insensitive, to take the next step.
This time, at least let the House vote on this bill without demanding a royal recommendation.