Debates of Sept. 16th, 2009

Action Plan for the National Capital Commission

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure what I heard from my colleague on the other side of the House, but I think that I understood him to want the bill to be sent to committee quickly to have amendments proposed, which he might or might not support. There are a few points that should be amended in my opinion, and I would like to know what he thinks.

Clause 3.1 of Bill C-37 reduces the number of commission members from 15 to 14. I would like to know whether he would agree with us when we likely submit an amendment to have an uneven number of members, perhaps 15, or to give the chairperson the deciding vote. With 14 votes split evenly, a decision would not easily be made.

Clauses 3.1 and 8 confirm the abolition of the commission's executive committee. This government's accountability act, Bill C-2—as we remember—provided in clause 288 for the formation of an executive committee of the National Capital Commission. There is a contradiction. So, we will have to see with my colleague whether he would be prepared to accept amendments to correct these errors.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Hull—Aylmer for his question. Indeed, the bill provides for a reduction in the number of members of the board of directors from 15 to 14. And 14 is an even number. So, when there is a vote, what will happen in the event of a tie vote?

I want to reassure my colleague opposite. Indeed, the board of directors in its new form, as we propose it, will include 14 members, and the chief executive officer will no longer be a member of the board. This change consolidates the oversight and the accountability of the National Capital Commission.

However, according to the regulations governing the commission, the chairperson casts the deciding vote in the case of a tie. This will make a decision possible in a tie vote. It is the chief executive officer who decides in the end in the case of a tie.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very brief question for my colleague.

The proposed legislation will create a specific position for a CEO at the NCC. Does the member agree with having the position designated officially bilingual?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his question.

As I mentioned in my speech, the National Capital Commission stands out from other federal institutions because of its respect for the application and the spirit of the Official Languages Act. For this, as a parliamentarian, I think we can give the commission a tip of the hat. I find my colleague's proposal interesting given that we are in an area where English and French are used. It would seem to me totally appropriate for this person to be able to speak in both of our country's fine official languages.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague made a small mistake when he talked about the deciding vote. Personally, I have not seen the clause in the bill that gives the chairperson a deciding vote. However, it could be in the regulations, except that my colleague was talking about the chief executive officer having a deciding vote. The bill certainly makes a difference between the chairperson and the CEO, and I do not think that the CEO can have--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Lévis—Bellechasse.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I meant the chairperson of the board of directors, not the chief executive officer. I stand corrected.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the bill which would seriously amend the enabling authority for the existence of the National Capital Commission and its mandate, and would deal with a number of pressing questions that have arisen more recently and have arisen over time.

However, before addressing the merits of some of the changes, I want to quickly review the history and the accomplishments of this crown corporation. It did celebrate 100 years, a century of achievement in 1999, from 1899 to 1999. It was established in 1959 and it had predecessors: the Federal District Commission of 1927 and the Ottawa Improvement Commission of 1899, so its roots go substantially back.

I think Canadians and parliamentarians know that the capital region was founded in the early 19th century as, effectively, lumbering and industrial centres. My own grandfather was a night watchman on LeBreton Flats, just a stone's throw from here, working the midnight shift, carrying his lunch-pail to work, carrying on his back a burlap bag of kindling back to the rooming house which my grandmother operated in downtown Ottawa at a time when Ottawa was very much divided between founding peoples at the time. Of course, it moved on and improved.

In 1899, Parliament created the Ottawa Improvement Commission. Its focus was to beautify Ottawa as the national capital. It created driveways along the Rideau Canal and Rockcliffe Park, and Minto bridges and several new urban parks.

From 1927 to 1959, governments established the First Federal District and transformed the organization into a more powerful Federal District Commission. It focused on working to the general advantage of Canada. It built the Champlain Bridge, the National War Memorial in Confederation Square, Gatineau Park, and the famous Gréber plan which sets out and maintains the existence of the green space in this region.

From 1959 to the present, the more recent generation, more recent time, the National Capital Act of 1958 doubled the size of the national capital region, bringing more of Quebec and Ontario together in the capital, as well as new expanses of natural land, rural land, and finally established the National Capital Commission in 1959, as I mentioned. Its focus was to create pride and unity through Canada's capital region.

What did it do during that time, 1959 to today? It removed the railway lines from downtown, something that, from time to time, we lament today given the importance of public transit, particularly light rail systems in our urban centres. It has built much infrastructure, expanded the Gatineau Park, created a protected greenbelt in the Ontario part of the capital region, decentralized government offices to campuses throughout the capital region and developed urban parks, things like the tulip displays and beyond.

The NCC has had a profound impact on our national capital region on behalf of all Canadians. It is all Canadians' whose tithes contributes to the NCC's budget. It is they who are shareholders in this national capital region. Some of us have the privilege and the benefit of serving as elected officials in this area. My own riding of Ottawa South is touched by NCC properties, the greenbelt, an international airport and more.

The NCC is here and it is here to stay. It has an undeniably important role in strengthening Canada's national capital, a G8 economy and a G20 economy. We want set up our capital here and we want to improve our capital that is becoming of our city, our region and our country.

The mandate and the activities of the NCC have not been without controversy in the more recent history in this region. There have been debates swirling about funding levels. Is the NCC sufficiently funded or has it been acquiring and developing properties on behalf of Canadians in order to provide the necessary funding levels to achieve its other responsibilities in its mandate?

What about its governance structures? How many people sit on the board? Do they meet publicly? What is their decision-making process? Is it open? Is it transparent? Is it closed door?

What about transparency itself? What kind of information is being accessed, links to consultation? To what extent is the NCC intervening appropriately, not only with other federal government line departments and central agencies, but other levels of government, the Corporation of the City of Ottawa, the Corporation of the City of Gatineau, the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and municipalities across the region as well?

Its property disposition has been quite successful over the years. The changes proposed in the bill make significant changes to the powers and the quantum, the amount of money involved in these property deals. The bill speaks also to the question of expropriation of properties, for example, in the Gatineau Park.

There are, of course, other outstanding questions. What role should the National Capital Commission play in its 10 year plans? What role should it play with respect to transportation master plans and transportation infrastructure?

There is a new context that is important to situate as we debate this legislation. The new context is this: Ottawa-Gatineau is now the fourth largest census metropolitan area in the country and it is at least the second fastest growing, following, I think, just behind the great city of Calgary. It is growing quickly. In many respects our larger census metropolitan areas are re-emerging as city states. They are re-emerging as city states, not only competing one against the other, but they are competing against American city states, Chinese city states, European city states and beyond.

Why is this important? It is important because we know from the work of important academics, like Richard Florida, that the question of how we do metropolitan areas is critical to our economic success. We know that the higher the quality of life in a census metropolitan area, like the Vancouver district, the greater Toronto area, Halifax, Dartmouth and beyond, has a direct bearing on the ability of these regions to attract and retain capital.

This region used to host some 2,500 high tech firms. Last year, under the watch of the Conservative government, only one new start-up high tech corporation was created using venture capital.

We are in a venture capital crisis. Our ability to attract that venture capital to give rise to those start-ups, to innovate, to compete and win, is directly affected by the quality of life that an organization like the National Capital Commission impacts upon.

Our ability to retain and attract skilled and educated workers is fundamental, which is what the experts tell us we need if we are going to compete and win in the race for a clean economy and the clean jobs of today and tomorrow. Therefore, quality of life in cities is paramount if we are going to win that race to the top.

The bill would make some changes to the NCC that, ultimately, in the context I have just set, has a bearing on that quality of life. Let us examine, for example, what the bill says about the environment. It speaks about environmental stewardship in clause 10.

The environmental implications we are learning now as we go forward are extraordinarily important because we are now recognizing that the environment is more than simply a limitless carrying capacity system that can provide without any end for our needs to be able to assimilate our wastes, provide our natural resources, give us our crops and our foodstuffs, maintain ecological integrity and so on and so forth. We now know that fiction is over.

We know, particularly through the phenomenon of climate change, that we are now butting up against carrying capacity challenges. We are asking the atmosphere, for example, to carry 450 parts per million of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, at a time when the scientific community is quite certain that we are playing Russian roulette with our atmospheric carrying capacity, temperature and other climatic patterns on the planet. This is linked, believe it or not, to the NCC.

The NCC has a mandate. not only in an urban context but, as we have heard in debate here earlier, with respect to a major park called the Gatineau Park, which hundreds of thousands of Canadians enjoy each and every year, tour, visit and ski through. It is filled with lakes and it is developed to a certain extent.

What happens within that park, as the NCC is given new marching orders with respect to ecological integrity and environmental stewardship, in terms of decision making made by the NCC, is fundamental. In one of the earlier questions I posed, I made it perfectly clear that what we now know about the national park system, despite our best efforts in setting up isolated zones across the country to represent different ecozones and ecosystems, we now really know, as the biological evidence tell us, that our park system is failing. It is failing because our parks are not connected. They are not connected because the predatory species cannot move easily. That is why I am so proud of my colleagues from Alberta who have launched the Yellowstone to Yukon initiative, finally overcoming the fiction and stopping the denial that this question of integrating our land masses to be able to allow for connectivity is so important to maintaining our flora and fauna.

We also know that our parks not only need to be connected but they need to be buffered. If one mines up to the edge of a park, despite the short-term attractiveness of turning that natural capital into financial capital through profit, we also know that without being buffered our parks are being compromised which draws down, once again, on our natural capital.

I know these terms, this concept, this idea and this thinking are foreign to many in the Conservative government. In fairness, the Prime Minister only admitted that the science of climate change was in fact correct after the chief scientific advisor for former President Bush told him so. Up to that point, the Prime Minister was in wilful or non-wilful denial about the risks inherent with climate change, temperature increases, species disappearance and so on and so forth.

Canadians would be forgiven, I think, if at face value they see these changes with respect to the environment in this bill and be skeptical about the government's serious intentions and whether or not they can trust the government to do the right thing.

The bill, for example, does not speak at all to the question of watershed management. We have in the Ottawa River one of the mightiest rivers in the world. The daily flow of the Ottawa River is larger than every western European tributary combined. It is a massive and mighty river which much of this region was built on. Much of the lumber used to create this beautiful chamber was derived from the Ottawa valley and floated down the Ottawa River.

How is this question of watershed management, if we are going to move for example to a watershed management approach, as they have in British Columbia, how will this impact on the NCC's mandate?

As I mentioned earlier, if we do what happened in Boston, where the city of Boston grew up and around a park area, we see that within some 150 years every indigenous species of flora and fauna in that park has disappeared and something new has replaced it. That is hardly ecological integrity.

Ecological integrity and the movement toward it began under our previous government, when former environment minister Sheila Copps struck a national panel. Prime Minister Mulroney understood the importance of this. He mentioned it in speeches in 1992 at the Earth Summit. By the way, the Prime Minister is the first prime minister not to participate in international negotiations for climate change, biodiversity or otherwise in recent Canadian history, in over 35 years.

Therefore, the bill does not answer fundamental questions about responsible environmental stewardship and what it means. It does not answer questions about what ecological integrity looks like. It does not seriously, in my view sufficiently, guide the executive of the NCC in its difficult decision making on how it is going to move forward.

How will the NCC expropriate properties even if we lift the ceiling and allow it to expropriate property for millions of dollars? Will it do so using fair market value? If I owned a property in the Gatineau Park that was being expropriated, would I not go out and get the most expensive possible listings, bids that I could possibly muster, turn around and pass it on the federal taxpayer and say, “Please indemnify me”?

Another issue which I have not raised yet and I would like to close with is this. How will the NCC deal with the important question of public transit, light rail and moving our citizenry in this area? Just today, the city of Ottawa settled a $37.5 million lawsuit for breach of contract for a light rail project which had been approved by this city, and by the way had been approved by the former minister of transport and President of the Treasury Board. After all this was done, after $45 million of acquisitions were pursued by the city, now a $37.5 million settlement and $2.5 million worth of legal fees, all of which came from the unprecedented and reckless behaviour of the present Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities while he was Treasury Board president.

This is why I am calling, for example, on the city of Ottawa to release its legal opinions to the Canadian people, to the citizens of Ottawa, and to Canadian taxpayers who pay for the NCC, whether there are legal opinions as to whether or not the federal government should be indemnifying the city of Ottawa for the reckless behaviour of the member for Ottawa West—Nepean.

Will the NCC's participation in this kind of transportation planning prevent this kind of reckless behaviour in the future? We do not know, but that would be very important to address, given the NCC's important responsibilities and its mandate to the shareholders of Canada. The taxpayers of Canada provide the tax dollars every year to allow the NCC to pursue its mandate on behalf of all Canadians to have a beautiful, healthy, high quality of life in our national capital, so it can continue to thrive for all Canadians and that all Canadians can be proud of.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

Income Support Program for Older Workers

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should as quickly as possible implement a genuine income support program for older workers who lost their job in order to ease their transition from active employment to pension benefits.

Mr. Speaker, Motion M-285 calls on the government to, “as quickly as possible implement a genuine income support program for older workers who lost their job in order to ease their transition from active employment to pension benefits”.

That is quite different from a program that targets training. We are talking about workers who, quite often, cannot be retrained. This program would give them the financial assistance needed to bridge the gap, after age 55, until they receive their pension and old age security. Such a program has existed in the past and was very successful.

In introducing this motion, I am thinking of those who have already benefited from the program and who could see it be reinstated. For example, in my riding, nearly 2,000 workers from Marine Industries were forced to retire because of the closure of the shipbuilding and railway car sections. These people were able to bridge the gap I mentioned earlier. The people of Sidbec-Dosco (Ispat) Inc., in a neighbouring riding, including many of my constituents, the people of the sewing plants in Saint-Ours and Pierreville, and the people from the manufacturing sector in Nicolet and Bécancour benefited from this program.

Today, it is just as sorely needed in Sorel, for example, where QIT-Fer et Titane, a plant that is actually doing well, shut down for eight weeks. These temporary closures worry the older workers. The Poudres Métalliques plant has had some difficult adjustments in recent years. At the Mittal plant in Contrecoeur, there are many workers from my riding. There was also the closure of Norsk Hydro in Bécancour, where there were workers aged 55 and up who could have taken advantage of such a program.

In fact, all working people throughout Quebec would be well served by the creation of this new program, which would really not cost very much money. The cost of restoring this program, known as POWA or the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, is estimated to be between $70 and $75 million.

In general, the Bloc Québécois thinks it is unacceptable for the government to delay creating an income support program for older workers who find themselves in an especially difficult situation.

In the 2006 Speech from the Throne, the Conservative government promised to establish a committee to study the creation of such a program, but the Bloc Québécois has seen the government do all it can to avoid real discussions of setting up this income support program.

An expert panel on older workers was established in January 2007 and submitted its report in 2008. However, this group clearly had a mandate to repeat the Conservative rhetoric and orient its work toward active measures. That is the difference I was talking about a little while ago in regard to active measures to reintegrate these workers who are 55 years of age or more and cannot go back to school, for example, because all they have is grade 2 or 3. They have not even finished secondary school. That is why the workers I am talking about are poorly served by active measures.

This program was aimed at all workers who suffered mass layoffs and could not be re-trained. POWA was established in 1988 and provided eligible workers between 55 and 64 years of age who had lost their jobs as a result of major, permanent layoffs with benefits in order to bridge the gap between their employment insurance and old age pension. Unfortunately the program was ended in March 1997. It was a shared-cost program, 70% funded by the federal government and 30% by the participating provinces. In 1996, 111,700 people were registered in the program after 900 layoffs.

Since the disappearance of POWA, the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, in March 1997, there have not been any more income support programs targeted specifically at older workers affected by mass layoffs or company closures.

It is a well-known fact, though, that age is a particular problem after job losses because employers are more reluctant to hire older people. This means that even though workers 55 years of age or more are generally less likely to be unemployed than young people, when they do find themselves unemployed, it is usually for a much longer time than the average.

In its 2004 Monitoring and Assessment Report, submitted in March 2005, the Employment Insurance Commission said that older workers are overrepresented among the long-term unemployed, making up 21.3% of this group but only 12.5% of the active population.

The pilot projects created in response to the mass layoffs are aimed mainly at providing training for people who have been laid off. However, older workers do not participate very much in this kind of training and measures like this are clearly inappropriate for them.

In addition, according to the four big central labour bodies, and I quote:

—studies have also shown that the older they are, the harder it is for workers to get training. Losing a job is much harder on older workers than on younger workers because the skills of older workers, who have not had access to training, are increasingly out of sync with the skills required by the current labour market.

The numbers speak volumes: workers over 55 years of age account for only 3.5% of participants in the regular skills development component, that is, training programs.

The Employment Insurance Commission notes that, “as a general rule, older workers remain unemployed longer than do workers between the ages of 25 and 54”. Older workers remain unemployed for an average of 33.6 weeks versus 23.3 weeks for workers aged 25 to 54. They are also relatively unskilled, which is why the program is so important. In fact, 39.1% of older workers have not completed high school, compared to 18.9% of workers between 25 and 54 years of age.

Workers have been calling for the reinstatement of POWA since the Minister of Finance at the time, Paul Martin, abolished it in 1997.

In 1995, the federal government contributed $297 million and the provinces contributed $127 million. It was clear that the program was useful. The final evaluation report released in 1997 had this to say about it:

POWA appears to have contributed to a greater quality of life for the participants. Participants, particularly under Regime 1, express greater satisfaction with aspects of their life such as ability to spend time with family, and participation in social and recreational activities.

POWA was renegotiated in 1993. At that time, Quebec and Ottawa renewed the program for older worker adjustment for those over 55 who were victims of massive layoffs in 1993. They reduced the minimum number of years of employment required to benefit from 15 to 13, which was an improvement.

Once their EI benefits had run out, workers aged 55 to 60 could also draw a monthly benefit of between $760 and $1,000, depending on their income, as long as they remained available for work.

For those aged 60 to 64, the benefits were set at $700 because RRQ benefits could be tacked on to their income. Previously, these benefits varied between $754 and $1,200.

This did not prevent recipients from working, as only 40% of employment income in excess of $300 could be deducted from benefits collected under the program.

During the 38th Parliament, the Bloc Québécois worked hard on many occasions to get an income support program for older workers implemented.

In the report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources tabled on February 15, 2005, recommendation 13 reflects the Bloc Québécois' position. It reads:

The Committee recommends that the proposed employment insurance commission consult program contributors and report to the government on the feasibility of providing a supplementary benefit beyond the proposed 50-week maximum period so as to help unemployed workers 50 years of age and over cope with extended periods of unemployment. The amount of the supplementary benefit and its duration should depend on lifetime contributions to employment insurance.

On June 9, 2005, the Bloc Québécois had a motion unanimously passed that referred to the increasing number of factory closures associated with globalization and called on the government to establish a strategy to help older workers who lose their jobs, a strategy that should include income support measures.

Despite that motion, the Liberals, in power at the time, took no action. We believe, however, that funds allocated to POWA should not come from employment insurance, but rather from the consolidated revenue fund, and that POWA should be a social program managed by Quebec and the provinces.

On April 6, 2006, the House unanimously passed an amendment to the amendment to the Speech from the Throne proposed by the Bloc Québécois, and I quote:

That the amendment be amended by adding after the words “tax increases” the following: “, for the lack of a strategy to help older workers who lose their jobs, a strategy that should include income support measures,”.

That idea was therefore added, and was unanimously adopted. This should have prompted the government to act, but it did not.

Although the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development talked about a feasibility study in spring 2006, the Conservative government still has done nothing. We still do not know the results of that study.

The Bloc devoted another opposition day to the issue in October 2006, and the Conservative Party was the only party to vote against the Bloc's proposal. The vote was 155 members in favour, and 124 against. The Bloc included this program in phase one and phase two of its economic recovery, which was announced in fall 2008 and 2009.

It would cost the federal government approximately $75 million a year to improve POWA. This calculation has been confirmed by a number of economists.

The expert panel consulted the provincial and territorial governments, employers, unions and academics. The public was also able to participate in these consultations.

As indicated in budget 2006, the expert panel was mandated to conduct a feasibility study, in partnership with the provinces and territories, to evaluate current and potential measures to address the challenges faced by displaced older workers, in order to help them overcome these difficulties, including improved training and enhanced income support, such as early retirement benefits. The group produced a report along the lines I mentioned today.

I wish to conclude by saying that the Canadian and provincial governments already have experience in implementing the type of programs I am talking about today. The program that we advocate is not only feasible, it is essential to take into account the actual situation of older workers who are collectively laid off or who lose their jobs because of plant closures. In spite of all efforts and good intentions, some of these workers are unable to find a new job. It is high time to act in order to correct the situation created by the elimination of the POWA in 1997. It only takes political will.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I found it very interesting to listen to the hon. member's comments and concerns about older workers.

I would be interested to know approximately how many people in his area have been victims as a result of this recession and are currently struggling to find employment today.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Madame Speaker, we are talking of course of hundreds of people. Historically, there were thousands.

Let us consider, for example, the 2,000 workers at Marine Industries. Today, this company operates under another name and has 250 to 300 employees. There are not many plant workers. It is more of an executive firm that needs highly qualified people. And the workforce was left with nothing at all.

This program allowed more than 500 employees who could not be retrained to take advantage of a link. They were 55, 57 or 58 years old and were able to get to 60 and then to 65.

Presently, in the plants in my region, which includes areas beyond my riding, there are cases that could obviously have benefited from this program, including in areas such as Saint-Hyacinthe, Drummondville, Contrecœur, Bécancour, Nicolet and Sorel. The recession has been deeply felt in all regions of Quebec and Canada. However, it has had devastating effects in the manufacturing, pulp and paper and forestry sectors.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, allow me to congratulate my colleague for introducing this motion. The hon. member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour has been extremely thorough in his defence of people over 55 years of age who have lost their jobs and who are unable to find other employment. He described the situation very accurately.

Alongside the hon. member, I took part in meetings with workers—at Marine Industries and the Jeffrey mine in Asbestos, among others—and we heard from people whose financial situation was severely affected. For example, they were forced to exhaust all their earnings before turning to welfare.

I would like to hear the hon. member expand on this. Like me, he knows that people over 55 who work for businesses like the Asbestos mine and Marine Industries account for 20% to 25% of all job losses. I would like to hear what the hon. member has to say about that.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Madam Speaker, there was indeed a high percentage of workers who were completely abandoned. It is nearly impossible for an electrician with 30 years of experience in the same plant to become an electronics engineer. These people learned their skills on the job. They were trained by other electricians when they started working in the plant. What they learned was quite specific to the company they worked for. Thus, at 57 or 58 years of age, they were unable to retrain.

My colleague mentioned the case of Marine Industries, where some employees had only a grade two or grade three education. Therefore, to be able to follow a training program, they would have had to go back to school for five, six or seven years. It did not make sense. These people had worked honestly, earned a living and raised their family. They found themselves forced to sell their house and to move into an apartment. The family was in a state of complete instability. When this program was implemented, it gave people between the ages of 57 and 60 sufficient money to last until they were eligible for the Quebec Pension Plan. Then, the pension would be added. Of course, the POWA benefits would be reduced accordingly. This would be sufficient for the worker to live on until he became eligible for the old age security pension. This was extremely beneficial. This is what I would like to be available for workers now.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to Motion No. 285. The sponsor of the motion would like to see this government implement an income support motion and a support program specifically for older workers who have lost their jobs to bridge them from active employment to receiving pension benefits.

I cannot encourage support for the motion. It would be against both the letter and the spirit of our policy with regard to older workers. Our government's approach to older workers has always been to create initiatives that encourage and support their retraining and participation in the labour market. If the initiative proposed in the motion were implemented, it would weaken the attachment of older people to the workforce and it would cost Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars.

Allow me to go over a bit of the history and give an historical perspective to the motion.

Motion No. 285 essentially calls for the establishment of a passive income support program, very much like the defunct program for older worker adjustment, or POWA.

POWA was a federal-provincial cost-shared program that existed from 1987 to 1996. It served 12,000 people and cost nearly half a billion dollars over the program's existence, and 70% of that was paid for by the Government of Canada. There were many problems with the program.

Let me cite the most important one. It discouraged people from returning to work. The figures tell the story. Only 19% of the participants in the program found work again after being laid off, as compared to 39% of the people who were not in the program. In addition, although both groups experienced a substantial loss of earnings after job loss, this loss was more pronounced for those in the program, with average earnings decreasing each year following layoff.

That program was abolished because of its negative impact on older workers and on the job market and because of its prohibitive cost.

In part because of these reasons, the government has decided to move away from passive income support toward a more effective intervention to help vulnerable workers.

We are currently dealing with an economic downturn and one of its effects is a rise in unemployment. It is distressing to see older people lose jobs that they may have held for many years. However, government-funded early retirement is not the answer. Why? Because as the economy picks up, we will need every worker we can get, and that is a fact. Every older worker has something to contribute and we want to be sure they are part of the labour market.

In a few years we could again face significant labour shortages. That is why we need to keep older workers in the labour market. Older workers are key to Canada's long-term prosperity, especially in the context of a rapidly aging population. They represent a large pool of experienced and skilled labour. Retaining them and retraining them is essential for ensuring a strong labour force in Canada.

The government's concern for older workers predates the current recession. In 2006 we introduced the targeted initiative for older workers. It provided active employment services to unemployed older workers in vulnerable communities affected by high unemployment or significant downsizing.

In 2007 we also appointed an expert panel on older workers, with a mandate to examine the longer-term issues facing this group. The panel confirmed that our government was on the right track with the employability approach that would remove systemic barriers and disincentives to work. The panel did not endorse a passive program like POWA.

Our aim is to give older workers more flexibility and choice so they can continue to participate in the workforce if they want to. The advent of the recession has only intensified our efforts to help older workers.

Canada's economic action plan is providing significant support to Canadian workers, including older workers affected by the global economic downturn. Through Canada's economic action plan, the government is creating more and better opportunities for Canadian workers through skills development. When older workers lose their jobs, they can get temporary income support through employment insurance income support. Many older workers are also receiving employment insurance-funded programming and training. We have invested significant sums of dollars toward training and retraining for the jobs that exist now and into the future.

Through Canada's economic action plan, our government is investing an additional $60 million nationally over three years in the targeted initiative for older workers, which we extended for additional years and have made available to workers in cities with populations of less than 250,000. This increased funding will enable even more older workers to make the transition to new jobs.

There is even more. Our economic action plan also provides about $500 million over two years for the career transition assistance program. This program offers extended income benefits to long-tenured workers who are paying for their own long-term training. We estimate that the career transition assistance program will benefit about 40,000 people.

All of these programs are aimed at helping people acquire new skills, training them and retraining them for a job market. These new initiatives are in addition to the increased support that we are providing to the provinces and territories for skills training through the labour market and labour market development agreements. Over two years, we are putting a total of $1.5 billion into these agreements, and that is on top of the programming support we already have in place. These agreements provide training support for the unemployed people.

In budget 2008, we increased the guaranteed income supplement earnings exemption from $500 to $3,500 and we made it easier to apply for and get the guaranteed income supplement. This is another significant improvement. Just recently, the Minister of Finance announced changes to the Canada pension plan rules, something that has been very well accepted, to better reward older workers who participate in the labour force and to improve the options for older workers who choose to combine pension and salary.

As one can see, these programs, although popular, may not be popular with the members of the opposition, but they are popular with the group that are benefited by them. As one can see, our government is committed to helping older workers remain in the labour market. This commitment is shown in our concrete actions to help older workers.

I should note that we are not the only ones who think that this is the best way to go. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, has strongly advised against publicly funded early retirement schemes. At the March 2009 meeting of the G8 employment and labour ministers, the OECD presented a paper that called early retirement schemes a policy mistake because they reduce the long-term labour supply and increase dependency on benefits. That is just not good for anyone and it is not good for our country.

Canada's prosperity now and into the future depends on a strong labour force. Older workers have accumulated the kind of wisdom and experience that we cannot afford to throw away. A passive income support scheme for unemployed older workers would be a waste of our human and financial resources and would cause great long-term damage to our economy.

This government is not going to make that kind of mistake. That is why I oppose Motion No. 285. I encourage my hon. colleagues to join me in voting against this sort of policy mistake and support our government's active measure for older workers.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to join the debate and pleased to see that you are in the chair and probably looking at the time and looking forward to having your evening off as well.

I am quite happy to speak today to support Motion No. 285, brought forward of course by the member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour. More to the point, as the Liberal critic for veterans affairs, seniors and pensions, I am particularly pleased to support Motion No. 285 as it parallels many of the things that we as a party have been urging the current government to accept and act upon for some time given the reality of the recession that is affecting thousands of people across this country. I think all of us want to work, but when we cannot find a job at 58 years old, then we should be able to rely on our government for assistance when all else fails.

Regretfully, the Liberal Party and the current Conservative government seem to place radically different levels of focus on these issues. We just heard from my colleague that it is a very different ideology and a very different thought process.

As Liberals, we believe it is incumbent upon governments to be proactive and to help whenever they can. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister and his Conservative caucus have their own thoughts on the issue which were clearly spelled out by my hon. colleague across the hall. I say this not to be unkind, even though that is usually what we are in the House, but rather to simply point out that the Conservative Party, now the government, has time and time again demonstrated its political tendency for playing to the masses while practising a strict adherence to the notion that only the strong shall survive.

That is not the Liberal way. I do not believe that is the Canadian way either. After all, it was the current Prime Minister who once ran for the office with a promise to replace the CPP with personal, high-interest pension accounts in which citizens could deposit all of their extra money, money that could then be used for their retirement. To me it sounds like a plan that might be slanted toward those with a great deal of extra money.

Another case in point is income trusts. In the election campaign, the Prime Minister said that taxing income trusts was like robbing our seniors of their nest eggs. We all heard him many, many times say that. But once in office, what did he do? He said he needed to tax income trusts to prevent the rich from getting richer. Given that the measure primarily impacted seniors and near retirees I am forced to wonder what event could possibly have perpetuated this radical policy flip-flop. The answer is simple. There was nothing. Nothing changed and nothing happened. If nothing happened, one must wonder if the idea to tax income trusts was always part of the Conservative plan. More important, it was a part of “I will say anything to get elected and I will do what I want after”.

I could go on with several examples, but I think most understand and accept that the Conservative government's record on quality pension reform and retirement income security is lacklustre at best.

As many members of the House will know, tens of thousands of skilled workers, particularly those who were employed in the manufacturing sector which my colleague referred to earlier, have lost their jobs due to circumstances far beyond their control. But what many do not fully understand is that the actual job loss is only the tip of the iceberg.

On September 20, 2007, our dollar hit parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time in more than 30 years. While Canadian tourists and cross-border shoppers began to rejoice, Canada's manufacturing sector winced as it was hit squarely in the bottom line. This reality, coupled with certain global market pressures, was part of a chain reaction that saw huge multinationals fail and governments worldwide dole out billions of dollars in economic stimulus.

In 2007, more than 130,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Canada. This year our economy has shed nearly half a million jobs in total. Where are these people? They are still unemployed. These numbers might sound staggering but it is not until one factors in the actual collapse of those companies and the subsequent loss of those companies' pension plans that the real toll in real terms can begin to be measured.

People can work to get another job, if they are lucky, but it is impossible to financially recover when 10, 20 or 30 years of pension contributions and interest are lost.

Canadian workers have been and are still losing their jobs today and their future financial security at an astounding rate. As recently as today, the OECD, which my colleague referred to earlier, released a report suggesting that western nations could set a new post-war unemployment record with the jobless numbers topping 10% next year.

While most nations are working tirelessly to stop the bleed, the Conservatives in this country continue to stand by with absolutely no plan of action to stop the hemorrhaging or to repair the damage. Just like they denied the recession was happening in the fall, the Conservatives' head-in-the-sand approach to problem-solving is now being extended to pension and retirement income security.

On the other side of the debate, the motion today deals with the need for a genuine program for older workers to help them financially transition from working life to retirement, but I would suggest that this concept must also be part of a far larger and more comprehensive debate on pensions and national income security.

The CPP, employment insurance, old age security and a host of other programs currently offered by the federal government have become the primary, if not exclusive, components in the retirement or emergency income strategies of many Canadians. Worse yet, in most cases, these important systems have been without a substantial review or wholesale revamp for several years.

There are few in this House who would suggest that Canada and the Canadian economy are the same today as when the CPP was passed by Lester Pearson in 1966. Today retirement income and pension security are also premised upon sound investments and robust global market growth, but, as members know, the current economic crisis has yielded anything but robust global markets. In some cases, portfolios have contracted to such a degree that investors have been wiped out entirely, undoing 20 years of shrewd financial planning.

While the current Prime Minister calls this negative market reality a great buying opportunity, to many watching, as a lifetime of retirement savings leak away, the situation qualifies as an outright crisis.

This brings me to Motion No. 285. I want to be clear. While the sponsoring member and I have differing opinions on many things, we share a real concern for those impacted by the global recession. Unlike the current Conservative government, we are determined to yield results for the tens of thousands of hard-working Canadian families who find themselves without work and without savings during this nearly unprecedented global and Canadian recession.

Motion No. 285 is a measure that fits hand in glove with the notion of income security. It is for that reason that I intend to stand in support of it. I say this carefully because I view Motion No. 285 positively, but I also see it as just one piece of a much larger puzzle. To have a real debate on retirement income, pension and investment security, we need to look beyond today's seniors. While we need to help protect our seniors and older workers today, we must also consider those who have seen their retirement savings eroded or eliminated as a result of the global economic downturn.

I cite the former Nortel pensioners as an example. In many cases, these employees worked for many years, contributing to a company pension plan that promised to be the central pillar in their personal retirement strategies. Today, with the volatility in the marketplace, that pillar has been toppled and the Conservative government seems content to deny the very existence of the problem.

I am pleased to be able to support this motion. I would think there are a variety of things that we need to talk about in the future, such as maximizing income coverage, where we can ensure it is adequate, and how we can protect the level of benefits that have been promised.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I was sitting here preparing to speak, it occurred to me that we have a situation where the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP are in agreement on support for our seniors, which is great, but I am curious as to whether we are now going to be called the coalition of senior supporters or whatever else the government will come up with.

This motion is urgently needed. Let us consider what it says. It states “That, in the opinion of the House”, which happens when the House votes and the majority makes a statement, not when just the Conservative government makes a statement. It goes on to read:

—the government should as quickly as possible implement a genuine income support program for older workers who lost their job in order to ease their transition from active employment to pension benefits.

Ensuring that older Canadians are able to live out their work life and their retirement years with the dignity they are due has long been a concern of mine, and even longer, a concern of the NDP.

I want to thank the Bloc member for bringing the motion forward because it is an important motion to put before the House, particularly at this time.

In fact, the first pension legislation in Canada came about as a result of the work of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, or the CCF, which was the forerunner to my NDP Party today. It was the CCFs leader, J.S. Woodsworth, who successfully pressured the Liberal government of Mackenzie King to implement an old age pension plan back in 1926. A previous speaker talked about Mr. Pearson in 1966 and the CPP. Pressure from the NDP-CCF was behind that move.

To this day, the NDP continues to push for an expansion of programs designed to ensure that seniors are able to live out their lives comfortably and in dignity.

Over this summer, I visited 19 communities across our country. I listened to seniors, doing the best I could to reassure them. I listened to their concerns and I will put them before the House as we discuss pensions in the coming weeks. Pensions must be a priority for the House in this particular session.

On June 11, I presented an opposition day motion on pension reform, which was unanimously supported in the House. Its first provision calls for immediate expansion of CPP, OAS and GIS.

We need to give consideration to doubling OAS. That measure will have to be discussed indepth because of the fiscal ramifications.

There are over 200,000 seniors in our country who live below the poverty line and 70% of them are women, and that is not acceptable.

Just as the NDP supports enhancing existing federal programs so seniors are able to live with the dignity that is their due, so we will also support proposals that aim to assist those older workers who find themselves out of a job and unable to acquire new work. Therefore, it is in keeping with the NDP's long established traditions and principles that we support the Bloc motion here today.

From talking to folks in my riding, I know that many older workers find themselves let go from their positions for two reasons. The first is prejudice among employers regarding the performance of older workers. These prejudices have absolutely no empirical evidence of support from any study or any body of research anywhere and are just that, prejudices. The second reason is the unconscionable practice among employers of exchanging their older, more highly paid employees with younger, less expensive ones.

Here are some more interesting things to note on this issue taken from a recent study that links discrimination of older workers to increased incidents of ill health.

While older workers tend to be more committed to the quality of their work performance and have more experience, many employers believe them to be limited as to the possession of the skills that are highly valued today, skills such as flexibility, which I do not think is really a skill but that is the way it is viewed in the corporate world, competency with respect to new technologies and a desire to learn new skills. This places them at a disadvantage in the hiring process.

Moreover, when older workers find themselves out of work, they tend to remain unemployed for a longer period of time than younger workers, in fact over twice as long, with older workers on average being out of work for up to a year. That is in normal times. They also experience a decline in earnings of 20% to 50% if they manage to find new work at all. Worse still, rates of job loss within the older worker population are higher among non-white and less educated persons. Recent research suggests that job loss among older workers leads to a decline in health, in mental health as well.

The upshot of this, it seems to me, is that we must provide some modest level of income support to these workers now or we will pay for far more expensive treatment, in medical terms, later on.

Last, 84% of managers and counsellors in HR centres agreed that employers discriminate against older workers in hiring practices.

I believe the Bloc's motion is calling for the kind of supportive bridge between the time an older worker is let go from his or her job until such time as he or she is old enough to be eligible for pension benefits of one kind or another.

In addition to income supports, there should be other programs. These programs should be put in place, designed to provide older workers with the kind of up-to-date training in technology and systems that will enable them to be more competitive with their younger peers.

Given that older workers are often unemployed for up to a year, as I said earlier, and having been let go from a job, it is very difficult for them. Supports must be in place to assist them until such time as they find that new job.

That older workers should be subjected to discrimination is all that more difficult to understand because of the commitment they have given to their companies over the years. According to Statistics Canada, there is expected to be a severe labour shortage coming our way as the baby boomers retire, and that was commented on earlier in the government's remarks . Perhaps having older workers stay in the workforce longer is a chance that this shortage may be sidestepped to some degree. That is if we, the people and employers, are able to overcome the prejudices toward older members of our workforce.

An estimated 2.1 million individuals between the ages of 55 to 64 were either unemployed or looking for work in 2006. This is more than double that in 1976. They represented 12% of the total workforce in 2006 compared with 10% three decades ago.

The previous speaker spoke about problems with programs in the 1980s and 1990s. We are dealing with a completely new generation of workers in terms of how a program should sustain these workers.

There are two main forces behind increases to our aging population and the rising labour force participation of older workers. Studies suggest that the labour force participation among this age group will continue to increase for three reasons: many baby boomers seem to want to remain in the workforce longer; rising levels of education particularly among women; and an apparent desire among people over 55 to continue working, either out of interest or financial necessity. One other point is this generation of older workers is far healthier than previous ones that we are aware of. In terms of employment, just over two million people age 55 to 64 had a job in 2006.

The projected labour shortages will occur, but then we will have no choice but to deal with them. We must be prepared for these shortages. Until such time as these issues are resolved, our older workers will need to know that supports are in place to assist them should they find themselves out of work through no fault of their own.

Obviously, this Bloc motion addresses an urgent need. In fact, I believe the original program for older worker adjustment should never have been eliminated in the first place. Therefore, I will close tonight by stating that it is an honour to support this particular Bloc motion, and I look forward to the day when it becomes a reality.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to the motion tabled by my colleague from Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour. It is an even greater pleasure because I worked very hard on this file on behalf of my party. First, of course, the human resources and social development file includes employment insurance. However, by way of historical coincidence, over the last few years, massive numbers of workers have lost their jobs in many different places. Workers over 55 years of age find themselves in a virtual dead end when there are no jobs in their area for which they are qualified or no jobs at all.

The program for older worker adjustment—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I do not know if this issue interests the member who is speaking out loud, but it concerns him too.

The program for older worker adjustment was launched in 1988. My colleagues referred to it. It was cancelled in 1997 for cost-cutting reasons to eliminate the deficit. It was, however, relatively inexpensive to run with an EI account that had some $16 billion in it at the time. The program costs were a mere $17 million. This goes to show that the decision made was a targeted one, and it has hurt a specific group, namely older workers. We have been trying to bring the program back because it was very popular and it delivered.

Before getting to the point I want to make here, let me set something straight. Much to my surprise, the government's parliamentary secretary claimed that what we are calling for is an early retirement plan. Either he does not understand the first thing about this debate or he is engaging in demagoguery. My sense is that he understands what the debate is all about. Early retirement plans are for workers with jobs to whom support is provided to help them transition to positions that remain active. This is completely different from what he said.

We are talking about those situations where workers lose their jobs. The positions have been abolished. These are massive job cuts, and the workers are laid off. When their EI benefits run out—if they are so lucky as to qualify for x number of weeks—and they go looking for work, there are no jobs for them. Employers may not want to hire them because of their age—it happens—or they do not have the qualifications required for the jobs that are available or, as is often the case, there are no jobs in the region where they live.

I will give some examples. Whirlpool, for instance, is the former manufacturer of Bélanger stoves in Montmagny. It used to employ 300 workers until it closed five years ago. Twenty-three percent of the workers were over 55. That was the main plant. Most of those workers were unable to find another job. They wanted to work; they were not lazy. The Liberal government was in power at the time and it suggested that they go work in Alberta. Can you imagine? A mother or father who have raised their children, who live in Montmagny with their entire family and they are going to move to Alberta to find work? That was the thinking in those days because there was no work nearby. But how would they survive in the meantime?

I remember a 57-year-old man. He sent out 91 job applications. He had one interview. People were discouraged.

In Huntingdon, it was textiles.

The job losses are staggering. And how many suicides have there been? These people are not lazy. They worked and paid employment insurance premiums their entire lives. There are no jobs. There is no early retirement program. It is callous and insulting to say that. It is tantamount to telling people that they were lazy, that they did not want to work, that there were jobs but that they did not want them.

I will give another example with which our colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles is familiar. The Régence shoe factory in Charlesbourg closed four years ago. When he was elected, he promised that he would do better than the Liberals. When elected in 2006, he met with representatives of the Régence factory workers. He was taken aback that they did not have a POWA program. He promised that they would get a POWA program and told them that they were not lazy. He told them that MPs make a lot of money and so on and so forth. He told them that he would look after them. Three months later the same people went to see him. He told them that progress was being made. You will remember that he was elected in January.

A motion was introduced in the House of Commons in October 2006, but he and his colleagues voted against the motion to implement POWA. I speak to these people regularly. I spoke to them again today. They call me because I listen to them. Even his office staff were rude to these people. They are saying that they feel betrayed.

That is rather rude behaviour, if I may say so. It is completely unacceptable to make a commitment to these workers—especially the female workers, because the majority are women—and to treat them the way that the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles has treated them. These people worked 30, 35 or even 40 years for a company. It is unacceptable that they are being treated the way the parliamentary secretary treated them today.

He spoke about an early retirement scheme. I do not think I have ever heard anything so offensive towards these people. When we talk about the people of Montmagny, Huntingdon, Charlesbourg, Asbestos—earlier, we spoke with the people of Jeffrey mine and Marine Industries—we can see that these people are often worn out. They have spent many years of their lives working and still want to continue to do so. They have dignity. It is unacceptable to treat them like this. We are here to ensure that the people who built this country and who support our economy are respected and that they are treated with dignity.

But the government refuses to implement this relatively inexpensive program. It is about $100 million. Each province can cover 30% of the cost. In February 2007, the National Assembly voted in favour of a motion asking the Canadian government to reinstate the program. Quebec was prepared to pay its share of 30%, which would leave a cost of $75 million to reinstate this program.

My Liberal colleague rightly said earlier that things have changed since the turn of this century. We saw an increase in mass layoffs. Over the last year, 500,000 jobs have been lost, including 70,000 in Quebec.

Are we going to keep compensating these workers by offering to train them? We are not against training programs for workers who can be retrained and go back to work. Workers are getting involved, but in most cases, only 6% or 7% of retrained workers manage to find a job, for reasons covered earlier.

I invite my colleagues to vote in favour of this motion. It is so important. It is not a binding motion like a bill, but once it is passed, maybe the Conservatives will find enough dignity to introduce a bill and act on it.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 is deemed to have been moved.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this adjournment debate and raise a question I asked on April 1, 2009, several months ago.

My question followed the disclosure of information about positions at Service Canada being posted in March 2008 but not filled yet in March 2009. Service Canada is now in charge of employment insurance, among other things.

Let us remember that, even if the Conservative government was denying the existence of the economic crisis at that time, people in our ridings were suffering. They did not have access to the employment insurance benefits they were entitled to because of unacceptable delays.

The Conservatives denied the existence of the crisis, and fathers and mothers had to pay the price. Let us be realistic. They are not the only ones paying the price. Their whole family is paying the price, including their children, along with their brothers and sisters. One year went by without positions being filled as they should have been.

Now it is September 16, 2009, and several months have passed since I asked that question on April 1, but I am still wondering what the Conservative government has done about it. It boasted that it was going to inject funds to hire people and speed up request processing so that unemployed workers could collect their first employment insurance cheque. Back then, and even now, workers had to wait more than 55 days to receive their first benefit cheque, which is totally unacceptable.

Now it is September 16 and we are still wondering where these people who were supposed to be hired are. Just to clarify, I am talking about employees in regional Service Canada centres. I am not talking about Service Canada employees in offices, call centres or other places where employees never meet clients face to face.

The fact is that we have to provide a service to our workers, a service to Canadian citizens. Today, I am still looking for these new workers in local centres that are supposed to be open to our citizens every day. We have been waiting for over a year, and we have often raised the issue of this crisis, but we are still waiting for these new employees while countless working families have had to wait two months or more to receive their first employment insurance cheque.

Last year, the Conservative government said that there was no crisis. It said that it was going to hire people, but in the end, it figured that the crisis would pass, that there would be no need for extra employees and that people would continue to receive their employment insurance benefits.

Why have we not yet seen concrete results and more workers in Service Canada centres?

I cannot wait to hear the parliamentary secretary's reply. He better not make up stories about additional positions being created in local offices because that is not true. When someone retires, the position is not filled. And if by chance it is filled, it goes to a central office. That is not what Canadians and the citizens in our ridings need. They need concrete results.

I will ask my question once again. Where are the new jobs that the Conservatives have been promising since 2008?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Madam Speaker, I heard the remarks of the member for Madawaska—Restigouche.

Certainly the government has taken action, and it has done a number of things in a substantive way and also in a process way. Our government knows that the global economic recession is affecting workers across Canada. We have taken significant, responsible and concrete action to help Canadians through employment insurance. We have made timely improvements to help Canadians by providing five extra weeks of benefits, making the EI application process easier, faster and better for businesses and workers and increasing opportunities for unemployed Canadians to upgrade their skills and get back to work.

Canadians are benefiting from these improvements. More than 240,000 Canadians have received additional weeks of benefits thanks to the five extra weeks of benefits included in Canada's economic action plan. This is a significant number of Canadians.

Canadians are benefiting from improvements to service delivery. Between April and July, 756 additional claims processing staff were hired and an additional 280 agents were hired and trained to answer calls to help even more Canadians receive their EI benefits as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Canada's economic action plan also announced the freezing of the employment insurance premium rate for 2010 at the same level as 2009 and 2008, the lowest level since 1982. These measures keep premium rates lower than they would otherwise be.

We are assisting businesses and their workers experiencing temporary slowdowns through improved and more accessible work-sharing agreements. More than 165,000 Canadians are benefiting from work-sharing agreements that are in place with almost 5,800 employers across Canada. It is a very popular program. The uptake is incredible. We believe it is very important to ensure Canada's workforce is in a position to get good jobs and to bounce back from the recession.

The career transition assistance program is a new initiative that will help an estimated 40,000 long-term workers who need additional support for retraining to find a new job.

The hon. member needs to get behind these programs. Instead of carping he should get behind these programs and support and encourage them to continue going forward.

Through this initiative, we have extended the duration of EI regular benefits for eligible workers who choose to participate in longer term training, for up to two years, and we are allowing earlier access to EI for eligible workers investing in their training by using all or part of their severance package. Two years, that is significant.

By working with the provinces and the territories through this and other programs, we are providing Canadians with easier access to training that is tailored to the needs of the workers in our country's different regions.

The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development today introduced measures to help long-term workers who have lost their jobs. These measures will help ensure that these long-tenured workers who have paid into the EI system for years are provided the help they need while they search for new employment. This is fair. It is an important step for Canadian workers who have worked hard, paid their taxes their whole lives and have found themselves in economic hardship. Surely the member can get behind and support this.

Our government is focused on what matters most to Canadians, finding solutions to help long-term workers who have worked hard and paid into the system for years but are having trouble finding employment through no fault of their own. We are going through the process of extending benefits to self-employed Canadians and getting Canadians back to work through historic investments in infrastructure and skills training.

It is clear from these and other measures introduced in Canada's economic action plan that our government is stepping up to the plate to provide real results for Canadians. The member needs to get behind that to see all these workers through this difficult time until the economy turns and they can bounce back into the mainstream of employment.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, given that my colleague opposite has broached two aspects of this matter, I would like to deal with them quickly.

First, although the Conservative government says that it wants to give workers an additional 20 weeks, why will it not cover seasonal and construction workers and those working in tourism? All these workers will not qualify for benefits. And yet, all these industries are in trouble.

Second, the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned the increase in employment insurance premiums. He is talking about the current situation but he dares not mention their hidden agenda: increasing employment insurance premiums by $13 billion. The reason for the increase is simple: it is a tax on workers, a tax on unemployment. That is the reality. While our workers lose their jobs, this government is announcing that it will impose another tax on workers, another tax on unemployment. That is unacceptable. They obviously are heartless and do not care about workers and their families and all those who lose their jobs.