Mr. Speaker, I am tabling a petition today, signed at a Hamilton forum on job losses, co-chaired by our federal leader, the member for Toronto—Danforth, and Andrea Horvath, the newly elected NDP leader in Ontario.
The workers signed the petition almost to a person, especially after listening to Shannon Horner-Shepherd's heartbreaking story about her struggle to support her disabled daughter, Gabby, and her other three children after losing her well-paying job at U.S. Steel.
The petitioners point out that they have paid into EI all of their working lives, but now that they need the safety net they themselves built, it is no longer there for them.
The petitioners are therefore calling for a comprehensive overhaul of the employment insurance system. Specifically the petitioners are calling for a standardized 360 hours to qualify, an increased benefit period of at least 50 weeks, the elimination of the two week waiting period, benefits at 60% of normal earnings based on the best 12 weeks and a bigger investment in training and retraining.
To that end, they call upon the government to respect the will of Parliament and act immediately on the comprehensive NDP motion, which was passed in the House of Commons, to restore the integrity of the employment insurance system.
These petitioners are keenly aware that successive Liberal and Conservative governments diverted $54 billion of worker and employer contributions to EI and used that money to pay down the debt and deficit, instead of using it to provide help for the involuntarily unemployed during economic downturns. That misappropriation only heightens the moral obligation for the government to restore the integrity of the EI system.
While I know it is against the rules of this chamber for members of Parliament to endorse a petition, I very much welcome the opportunity to present this petition on behalf of the over 300,000 newly unemployed Canadians since the last election.