Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow up on a question I asked the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. It came from a newspaper article where she was quoted, and she has never denied it, saying that she did not want to make EI too lucrative or pay people not to work. I see members on the government side are shocked at that. I can see in their faces that some members cannot believe she would say something like that, but she did. It is an appalling statement to make about the unemployed workers of Canada.
We have a lot of issues with EI, but one of the key ones right now is that EI is a very effective form of stimulus. Ian Lee, an economist and director of the MBA program at the Sprott School of Business, talked about a study that ranked the different types of stimuli. Out of tax cuts, infrastructure and the different types of stimuli, the most effective form would be employment insurance.
In today's Toronto Star is the headline, “Welfare 'stimulus' touted. Want bang for buck in economic package? Give the poor a hand...” The same goes for employment insurance. This is money goes to people who absolutely need it. The problem is they are not getting it. Not enough Canadians have access to it.
According to the Caledon Institute in 1976, 84% of unemployed Canadians could receive EI benefits, and I do not think anybody has ever disputed this. Now it is 44%. It is just not right.
On top of that, we have the disgrace of delays by Service Canada. It is not the fault of the wonderful employees of Service Canada that people do not get their benefits on time. I do not think anybody on the government side, particularly the minister, is standing up for people waiting for EI.
A number of members on this side are. The member for Madawaska—Restigouche raised a question in the House yesterday and spoke to this need. He said in a press release that the waiting period for receiving the first EI cheque had been increasing. He said that they were no longer talking about two weeks but more like seven to eight weeks. He added that some people had even waited 55 days or more before receiving their first EI benefit.
I spoke to him as the critic and he told me about a specific person who, I think he indicated, had contacted him on Facebook and had asked for help. My colleague and friend, the member for Madawaska—Restigouche, brought it to the floor of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, the answers are not particularly forthcoming. That is the concern we have on this side.
Employment insurance is an absolute necessity in these difficult times. There are so many things the government could do to improve it. It could have eliminated the two-week waiting period; it did not do it. It could have increased benefits; it did not do it. It would have equalized access for people who need assistance; it did not do it. It added five weeks at the end and that is small comfort to people who do not qualify at all.
The government needs to step up and represent the people who are losing their jobs through no fault of their own. It is not lucrative to be on employment insurance. Nobody wants to be on it at a fraction of his or her previous salary. I wish the government would not be so out of touch and insensitive to the needs of those workers.