Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition today on behalf of the 32,400 Hamiltonians who were unemployed as of April.
The petitioners point out that they have paid into EI all of their working lives but now that they need the safety net that 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 of 60% of normal earnings based on the best 12 weeks, and a bigger investment in training and retraining.
To that end, they are calling upon the government to respect the will of Parliament and act immediately on the comprehensive NDP motion that 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 involuntary unemployed during economic downturns. That misappropriation only heightens the moral obligation for the government to restore the integrity of the EI system.