Madam Speaker, I am glad to join in the debate tonight on an issue that means quite a bit to not only the people I represent in Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, but to people across Canada.
The bill would put in place something for which we, in the NDP, have been calling for quite some time: to end the two week waiting period before a claimant can receive employment insurance benefits.
The bill closely resembles the bill of my colleague from Nickel Belt and is a component of my own private member's bill that we will debate here in the House in the coming weeks.
As I stated, the bill is important to the people in my riding but is even more important to Canadians who will be forced to apply for employment insurance, which is becoming all too common these days. When workers lose their jobs, are laid off or watch as the company they have been employed by dissolve before their eyes, the last thing they need is a gap in their income.
Unfortunately, that is about the first thing they get. They need to wait for two weeks before they are eligible to receive a stipend from employment insurance, the same insurance they have paid into in good faith for the term of their employment. It is an unnecessary hardship. It is a hardship that is being thrust upon people at the worst time when they have enough to worry about.
To hear our Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development talk about these people, it is not difficult to spot the contempt and suspicion she has for the unemployed. We must remember that she thinks it is very lucrative to be on EI. I think that is a shame. To her, people on EI are lazy or even look forward to receiving benefits. She does not recognize that it is a benefit that they paid for in good times with the expectation that they would be able to count on it in lean times.
Even for those lucky enough to quality for the benefits, they are forced to wait. They are forced to exhaust severances and dip into hard-earned savings while they wait.
It is very telling. It shows the level of respect the Conservatives have for the unemployed. It shows the lack of compassion they have for the unemployed and it shows the shortsightedness they suffer from as well, because there is no better short term economic stimulus available to the government than employment insurance.
This is not something I am wishing were true or just making up. It is a fact. Employment insurance has the single best multiplier effect out of the stimulus tools available to the government. It has a multiplier of $1.64 for every dollar the government spends on it. Therefore, basically, when people receive EI, they are not the ones taking big vacations. They are out spending the money in their communities. Hence, the economic stimulus is even greater. It has the best bang for the buck.
It is certainly better than tax cuts that flow directly into savings accounts in most cases. It is even better than infrastructure spending because it flows directly to the places where the economy is doing its worst and helps to shore up those local economies. It is not bogged down with red tape and has an established and reliable delivery system.
People on EI spend their EI cheques within two weeks of receiving it. Best of all, it has already been paid for by the workers of this country. It really does not cost the government anything. It just needs to lose its dependency on using the premiums it collects to fund other government expenditures.
It is extremely important that people do not need to wait two weeks for their cheques at the beginning. The problem is that at the end of the day there are less people who qualify for EI so the two weeks would actually benefit these people.
The government already knows all of this and is choosing to ignore it. It was told as much by Ian Lee, the director of the MBA program at the Sprott School of Business back in the prebudget consultations. It just chose to ignore it. The Conservatives like the program the way it is.
For the present government and the Liberal government that preceded it, employment insurance has been the cash cow that funds their real priorities, priorities like corporate tax breaks and dirty sponsorship deals, things that really matter to these hard right, entitled politicians.
We have been told that over $54 billion have been built up in the employment insurance fund. The fund has been building up because over the last 15 years successive governments implemented deep cuts to benefits and changed the ineligibility rules.
That money, which was meant to be used as an emergency fund for the workers, has been basically stolen from them and used for all kinds of expenditures.
Statistics show that in 2006 and 2007 fewer than four in ten unemployed workers were able to access benefits. Is that not a shame? The impact on qualification was even greater for women. In 1996, the maximum weekly benefit was $604. Now the maximum is only $447, with the average person getting about $335 a week.
These trends go the wrong way. We need to reverse them. If people do not have access to their EI funds when they need them the most, where do they go? They go on welfare. I think that is a shame.
We can see that a lot of money should be available and there should be no reason for a person to have to endure a waiting period at all. In a time when we are witnessing our economy shedding jobs at an alarming rate, there is no way people are collecting EI because they are lazy or because it is so lucrative that there is no point in looking for another job.
In many cases, especially in a riding such as mine, there are no other jobs for these people. They have a choice to make. They can tough it out and wait for the mills and mines to get back to work, which is something the government does not seem to want to help very much, or they can leave. Sadly, we are witnessing more and more departures.
White River, a community in my constituency, is shrinking at an alarming rate. Is that what we want for our smaller, more vulnerable communities? Does everyone have to abandon their rural roots and take low-paying service industry jobs in the bigger cities? I do not think that has to be the case. I do not believe we have been elected just to sit on our hands and watch that happen.
There are things we can do and mechanisms we can trip to try to stop the bleeding. Reducing the waiting period for EI is an important one that we must continue to fight for.
We are not the only ones calling for these changes. The Bloc recognizes that the two week waiting period should be eliminated and that other changes should be made to employment insurance. The Canadian Labour Congress, the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the Centrale des syndicats du Québec, the Conseil national des chômeurs and unemployed workers themselves are calling for these changes.
They see the benefit of protecting our workers and their communities now, immediately. They see the benefit in keeping our unemployed workers in their communities, allowing stores to stay open and rent and mortgages to be paid. They see the real difference a few weeks of EI benefits can make in earlier access.
These are exceptional times. Exceptional times deserve exceptional responses from governments, but we are not getting that from our current government. It is out to make the hard times harder. Shame on it.
It has tacked on a few weeks of EI, and it would seem that is it. That is all it is going to give to the workers of our country. It has not made it more accessible. It has not made it more substantial. It has not done much, and that is patently wrong. The government has all kinds of money for tax breaks for corporations--money that comes in part out of the EI fund, as we have seen--but when it comes time for the unemployed and their real and pressing needs, sorry, the cupboard is bare. I cannot accept that, and neither can my colleagues.
We will be standing to support this motion when it comes to a vote, and I can only hope that when the time comes, the government will recognize the need for this measure and support it as well. It is extremely important that people have access to their EI as soon as possible.
I can say that the NDP will be supporting this motion. The Bloc will be supporting it because of course it is a Bloc motion. I can only hope that the Liberals and Conservatives can support it as well.