Mr. Speaker, my hometown of Hamilton is being hit by a tsunami of job losses, not just in steelmaking but in manufacturing, health care and just about every other sector of employment.
This is the time when workers need to draw on the employment insurance that they paid into all of their working lives, but instead of helping workers to access what is rightfully theirs, the minister responsible for the program hurls insults by saying, “We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay at home and get paid for it”. It is outrageous. Workers need EI not so they can stay at home, but so they can keep their homes.
It gets worse. She then said that if Canadians were not working, it was simply because they were not looking hard enough.
The minister needs a reality check and she needs to apologize to every laid off worker. Then she needs to act swiftly to hire enough staff to help laid off workers to access their benefits and to overhaul the entire EI system by improving eligibility, enhancing benefits and ending the two week waiting period. Laid off workers and their families deserve nothing less.