Mr. Speaker, the fact is that our employment insurance system treats everyone equally. It treats men the same as women. There are no gender differences. Everyone pays into the system at the same premium rate. Everyone receives the benefits for which they qualify on the same basis, regardless of whether they are men or women.
We have made a number of changes to the EI system in the past year, changes that are providing additional benefits to more Canadians, more quickly and for a longer period of time. Those extra benefits we offered to both men and women to help them through these difficult and challenging times were in the budget and the New Democratic Party voted against that, and its members were proud of voting against it.
They were proud to vote against providing five extra weeks of benefits across the country to everyone, both men and women. They were proud to vote against freezing EI premium rates for this year and next. They voted against literally billions of dollars of extra help for Canadians to get more training, skills upgrading or to help them in their transition to new careers. They voted against all of those provisions that apply to men and women. How do they justify the statements now being made today?
They were proud to vote against all of the other stimulus measures and help that our Conservative government is providing through Canada's economic action plan. Why is that? They said that it was not good enough. They were mistaken.
The kinds of things our Conservative government has done on EI are good and many Canadians also think we did the right thing. However, the New Democrats rejected that because, in their view, it was not perfect. Not always will a program be perfect but it does address the issues at hand.
In the case of Canada's economic action plan and our measures to help the unemployed, the NDP voted against what most Canadians thought were good steps. Unfortunately for the NDP, the idea of perfect is very far from what most Canadians want or are prepared to accept.
I am encouraged, however, by the fact that our New Democratic colleagues have seen the error of their ways and are supporting the government's recent actions to help Canadians through Bill C-50, which would provide between five and twenty weeks of additional EI benefits to Canadian workers who have worked for years and have paid into the system during that time.
We hope they will support legislation that we have signalled we will introduce, legislation to give self-employed Canadians access to EI's special benefits. An increasing number of Canadians are self-employed or have self-employment income, and many of them are women. This will be another positive step for Canadians, especially during the beginning of our economic recovery.
I do want to touch on something my colleague said in her original question back in June. She said:
Coverage rates for unemployed women have declined from 82% in 1989 to 39% in 2008....
In fact, women's access to EI regular benefits is high. In 2007, 81% of unemployed women who had been paying premiums and who were laid off or quit with cause were eligible for regular benefits. In 2007, more than 56% of permanent part-time workers were eligible for EI regular benefits.
Women's access to EI special benefits, such as maternity and parental benefits, is very high. Ninety-seven per cent of women working full-time have enough hours to qualify for special benefits. This is the same level of access as men. It is important to note that among women working part-time, 62% have enough hours to qualify for special benefits compared to 59% for men.
Our government is doing a lot for unemployed Canadians, for men and women alike. I am glad the NDP has understood that our government's actions are good for Canadians and will be supporting Bill C-50. I hope it will continue with that type of support.