Debates of Sept. 17th, 2009

Employment Insurance Act

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, number one, I want to congratulate the New Democratic Party for having the wisdom to support our initiatives on EI reform. I think it is obviously in the best interests of all Canadians to do so.

However, I would point out a couple of things that the hon. member may not quite realize; that is, when I spoke of the former Trudeau administration creating this massive debt that we are still paying the price for today, that is absolutely true. In fact, the following Progressive Conservative administration had reduced the debt. That is fact. That is something we can find in the history books.

However, the other thing I would point out, and this is something that has confused me mightily. On one hand, members of the New Democratic Party seem to be now applauding the initiatives we brought forward, but at every single time previous to this, its members voted against any EI reforms. In fact, I think we all recall our last budget we brought in, the members of the NDP said they would vote against it without even reading it.

So, how does anyone, how does any Canadian put any credibility into anything the NDP says when we know its members are taking such an irresponsible course of action as to start opposing budgets before they even read them?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I heard several times during the debate and questioning references to get this bill to committee so we can make some changes, and of course other matters we can deal with, like other benefits, et cetera.

I think that is very noble to suggest that we could do that. However, I think maybe the deputy House leader for the Conservative Party, as a learned man on these matters, knows about scope of the bill and knows that when a bill passes at second reading and is referred to committee, it is approval in principle for that bill for the purpose for which that bill was set up, which is to deal with long-tenured employees.

As a consequence, it would appear to me, and I am asking the hon. member if he would like to also share his views with the House, that changes or proposed amendments, such as self-employed worker changes and other things that we have talked about, in fact, would be beyond the scope of the bill being referred to the committee and, in fact, would be out of order.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, I think in all cases our government has taken the position that if changes and improvements can be made at committee, to any piece of legislation, we would welcome it. Clearly, substantive changes that would fundamentally alter the act or the legislation brought forward to committee would not be procedurally correct if it were done after second reading. Sometimes bills are referred to committee, as my learned colleague knows, before second reading, and then substantive changes could be made.

What we are suggesting here is that this bill deserves consideration and deserves consideration of all parliamentarians and all members of this place swiftly. Swiftly, we would like to see this placed into law. That obviously means we have to get the consent of our colleagues on the other side of the House and their colleagues in the Senate. However, if we can do that, we would welcome any changes that would improve this piece of legislation. If committee can come up with those changes, fine, we will welcome it; but above all, let us get this bill passed swiftly.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Gatineau, the Public Service; the hon. member for Malpeque, Agriculture.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie.

It is time for leadership. It is time to help unemployed Canadians before they are literally left out in the cold. Presently, 1.6 million Canadians are unemployed and this winter that number will grow and many will run out of EI and risk ending up on welfare. We have a responsibility to help.

New Democrats have long called for improvements to the EI system, particularly during the time of this economic recession, and we are pleased that the government has finally moved forward. These changes will help workers now and New Democrats are more interested in helping the unemployed than we are in provoking an election. Make no mistake, New Democrats are supporting this EI proposal, not the Conservative government.

The NDP plan for EI of reducing the hours needed to qualify to 360, including the self-employed, eliminating the waiting period and raising benefit rates has been passed by the House, and until now largely ignored by the Conservative government. The changes proposed in this legislation are a step in the right direction, but there is much more to do.

New Democrats believe that the best way to effectively use the balance of power Canadians have given to us is not to force another election but to rather force more changes to EI that would see the government work to enact the New Democratic Party plan. It is the responsible thing to do.

I have heard Liberals and Conservatives talk about their economic management and what they think is good. They toss it back and forth like a tennis ball. One party feels it is a better economic manager than the other.

Canadian workers are good economic managers because they contributed to the EI plan for a rainy day. They learned that from their parents. They learned to save for a rainy day. Their savings plan was the EI account and they contributed willingly and dutifully. They thought it would be there for them when the rain came. The rain has come, not as a sprinkle, not as a downpour, but as a torrent.

Where do we find 40% of those Canadians who contributed to the rainy day fund? They are standing in the rain, shivering, freezing, destitute, and without the rainy day fund that they pledged their money to because it was absconded with. Fifty-seven billion dollars would have looked after this torrent.

Canadian workers are asking where that money went. The unemployed are asking what happened to the money they saved. The response, of course, is that someone spent it and unemployed workers want to know what it was spent on. Was it spent on unemployed workers before them? Of course, the answer is no.

Under the changes of Brian Mulroney in the late eighties, continued on by the Liberals in the nineties, the system was gutted so that most folks did not get employment insurance. They simply had to do without.

As that money simply amassed, someone had the bright idea to spend it, and it was spent. First the Liberals spent the bulk of it and the Conservatives spent the rest. The Conservatives are saying they really cannot afford to look after the unemployed because they are running a deficit.

The last number that the finance minister threw out just last week was $56 billion. If the Conservatives had kept the rainy day fund, they would have a balanced budget and that would be good financial management. Neither one of those parties has been a good financial manager. Workers figured out how to actually be good financial managers because they are the ones who saved.

We owe those workers that money. It was not ours to keep. It was not ours to spend on the things that the Liberal government and the Conservative government thought they could spend it on. The pledge to the workers was to collect it for employment insurance to make sure that when they were unemployed they were protected, that they would receive what was due to them. The pledge was not to have it absconded by someone else who simply spent it on whatever. Unfortunately, that is where we find ourselves.

We should not be debating who is the best financial manager because clearly neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are good at it. We ought to be debating how we intend to protect those workers who, for no fault of their own, find themselves in this torrent, this huge downpour, standing out there freezing in the rain, looking to us for help. The money might only be needed for a while because workers intend to get back on their feet. These individuals have worked for a long period of time and this money will help some.

However, as my hon. colleague from the Liberals said earlier about the loggers, let me point out what happened to auto workers who got laid off last October for seven weeks and then got laid off again permanently in February. They do not have enough hours between the layoff periods to get a new claim in February. They must go back to October 2008. They have worked for 25 years and have never been laid off before. The government plan does not qualify them.

The government's plan says they had to be laid off and have a claim as of January 2009. Their claim will be October 2008. Yet, they are long-tenured workers. They have worked 25, 30 years at a workplace and never collected a dime from the old UI system, which is what it should still be called, unemployment insurance, because it is about insurance for the unemployed, not insurance for the employed.

What it really should be about is making sure that long-tenured workers are covered. The government is not going to ensure that they are covered. Those people are going to go without simply because a temporary layoff happened in 2008 just prior to a permanent layoff in 2009, for which they will not qualify.

What will it say to long-tenured workers, I ask the government, when it looks them in the eye and says, “We made a program for you. Yes, we know you never collected before. I'm sorry, we put the wrong date. Should we have reconsidered the dates”?

I heard my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, talk about taking the bill to committee to perhaps amend it and look for ways to do some things that can improve it. Indeed, we are going to have to do that because as much as it is well intentioned, it falls short. It falls short for long-tenured workers who indeed fit the scenario I have just laid out. There are other cases, as well, that will fall short of what has been set up.

We need to look at all of those things because clearly workers are looking at us and asking, “Why aren't you helping us? That is your role, is it not, as parliamentarians? Is that not what you told us you would do when you collected our money”? We have an obligation to them. We have a debt to them. We ought to repay that debt. That is the solemn promise we made to them when we collected their money.

I hear the idea that we cannot do 360 hours because they have only paid for a short period of time. I can hear the car insurance companies rubbing their hands with glee saying, “If you buy a new car, you pay your first premium and you crack the car up the following week, sorry, your car insurance does not cover it because you have only paid one premium”.

I wonder how many people have had the great pleasure of having teenage drivers in their households who happened to have a fender-bender and find out, indeed, that their insurance would not cover them because they only paid one premium. Insurance is insurance for a reason. It is there to protect people when they need it. It is not there to deny them because they fell on hard times.

The rules are clear in the EI system. I hear the government incessantly saying, “We are not going to give money to folks who don't want to work. If you quit, you don't get anything”. It is clear. The legislation has been clear for years. If people quit their jobs, they do not collect. If they get laid off, that is not their choice. They do not choose to get laid off because if they did, they would be quitting. When people get laid off, they should collect. That is what insurance protects them against. It protects them from being unemployed.

It is there to bridge the gap and make sure they can get from that period of unemployment to a period of employment because that is what the vast majority of Canadians do. When Canadians are asked if they want employment insurance or to go to work, they say they want to go to work.

Let me explain what the benefit level is. Even if people are making minimum wage in the province of Ontario, let us say $10 an hour at 40 hours a week, that is $400. If they go on employment insurance, they do not get $400. Why would they stay home to get 55%, basically $225 or so a week, rather than $400 if they are working? Clearly, no one goes home for less just because they can collect a cheque. People want to work, they will continue to work, and Canadians are proud to go to work. It is our obligation to make sure we see them through these hard times.

We expect this to pass with some changes and we expect the government to bring forward more EI changes that are going to benefit the laid off workers who are waiting and looking to the government to say when it will bring it forward. They need it, they need it now. Let us get on with the job of doing it.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am certain that my NDP colleague will recall—he will be reminded many times in the weeks to come—that the Liberals took out $57 billion from the employment insurance fund to balance the government books. To accumulate this amount, they had to exclude about half the people who were entitled to unemployment benefits.

Today, we see that the Conservatives have a similar problem. They are accumulating as much debt as the Liberals had paid off. They are implementing measures for the unemployed. However, in order for these measures to help they cannot be given to everyone because we have too much debt. Thus, they are creating two classes of unemployed: the good and the bad. The good are those who have always been employed without missing a day of work. The seasonal or part-time workers, or workers with two jobs who cannot accumulate enough hours, are the bad ones. So you see there is a special class of people among the unemployed.

While we focus on the problem of the unemployed, we no longer pay attention to tax evaders, those who use tax havens, those who file tax returns ad infinitum without paying any tax and white-collar criminals who commit fraud at every turn.

I would like to hear my colleague's comments on this matter.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct to ask who took money and where it went.

Regarding part-time workers and seasonal workers, this primarily has affected women. When we look across the board, it is women in the economy who have suffered the greatest with the new changes.

I have heard the government complain time and time again that it was the Liberals who gave us the system. I say to my friends across the way to fix it. It is pretty simple. If they got a bad system from the guys across from them, then fix it. It is that simple. It is not that hard. All they have to do is enact the changes. The changes are before them. Take them to committee. In fact some of them are there. The Conservatives opposed the ones I proposed around severance and vacation pay, as did some of the my friends in the Liberal Party. They turned them down.

Vacation pay, which is earned in the year in which people work, is not new money. It is earned in the previous year, the year they were actually working, and it was taken away from them. Why? It is because you have not thought about the unemployed. What you have thought about is collecting the money, and that is not what the employment insurance is about. Employment--

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would like to remind the hon. member to direct his comments to the chair. I am sure he does not think I do not think about the unemployed.

The hon. Minister of State for Science and Technology.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Minister of State (Science and Technology) (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate getting up to acknowledge that I support this bill. There are a lot of folks in my riding of Cambridge who have lost their jobs. This will definitely help them.

On the one hand, I do want to thank the NDP for coming to its senses, reading a bill for once, and deciding to vote for it. The member for Welland made a comment that Canadians want to work and sometimes they have to collect unemployment. I could not agree more with that.

This government has brought in a number of initiatives outside of employment insurance: economic stimulus programs that are creating jobs. In his own riding, this government made an announcement for the community adjustment fund and the member voted against money for his own area of Welland to create jobs.

The member never once asked me to help get money into his riding. Other members around Welland did that. We were able to help his riding despite his intervention and despite the fact that he--

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would like to give the hon. member the opportunity to respond. There are 30 seconds.

On a point of order, the hon. minister of state.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have been here all afternoon and I have noticed there is often a tendency to cut off the question. I do appreciate that there is only 30 seconds. In fact, I think you are justified in this case.

This is my first opportunity to stand up and ask a question. You did not recognize me the last time and you went to the Liberals. I wonder if you could pay some fair attention and give people proper time to ask their questions so we can have a debate that is democratic.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I can assure the hon. member that I will recognize him in a proper, appropriate rotation as much as I can.

The hon. member for Welland has 30 seconds to respond.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for allowing me the 30 seconds.

Clearly we are talking about employment insurance and how to make the system correct. A hodgepodge fix of this and that to cobble together a system that is broken and needs to be fixed will not work.

What will work is revamping the system and making it work for Canadians. They expect no less of us. That is exactly what we are saying. To layer the system with more inconsistencies, to put one piece on top of the other in a broken system will not fix it.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Madam Speaker, this past summer I was one of those people who was quite disappointed in two things. One was that there was a very important discussion in Ottawa between the Conservatives and the Liberals on EI that two duly elected parties to this House were not privy to. We were not invited. We were not included. It was not a complete and inclusive process.

With that in mind, I am pleased we are having this conversation, however limited, about an issue that affects so many across this country. It will continue to affect many people as the recession we are in continues to roll on and more and more people find themselves unemployed.

It was unfortunate that more of us were not engaged in that conservation this summer. I think if more of us had been engaged, there might have been more potential for an agreement.

I have been privy to, and part of, many negotiations, discussions and efforts to bridge gaps and bring people together. I have always found that when there are two people it is difficult, particularly when the divide is obvious and the reason for coming together in the first place is so political, not really looking directly at those who would benefit most.

If others are brought in who can water that down a bit and bring a different perspective to the table, we often find agreement where otherwise it might not be possible.

I was disappointed that we were not invited. There are many in the House, the member for Chambly—Borduas who spoke earlier today and the member from New Brunswick, who have led the fight on EI for so many years. I, and others, have tremendous interest in this, and we have a lot of experience and knowledge. We have been around this issue a number of times. We could have contributed in a significant and important way to that discussion and to the end result, which I think would have gone a long way to assist all our constituents who are struggling with unemployment.

I was disappointed that we were not invited, and I was disappointed that the two parties who came together, as we got reports through the media, seemed to choose to play politics as opposed to getting down to work, rolling up their sleeves and getting something done for unemployed workers and their families in this country.

It was unfortunate and sad that given the amount of time from the middle of June until the middle of September that we were not able to get to where we could say to the people of Canada that we have come together with goodwill, worked hard and this is what we think we can provide, what we think is necessary for the people of the country.

That is why it is important that we have this opportunity, all of us together in this place, and hopefully at committee, to sit down and seriously discuss what has been put in front of us so we might assess its value. Then, in assessing its value, if it falls short, all of us can come to the table with our best game, bring our best ideas forward.

There are a lot of good ideas out there. There have been a number of EI bills brought forward to the House by individual members, their staff and caucuses, who have worked hard to improve the lot for workers and their families in this country. There is no shortage of good ideas and ways forward that would be helpful to the workers, particularly the unemployed workers of this country.

That is why it is so important that we take full advantage of this moment, that we do not continue, as happened this summer between the Conservatives and the Liberals, to play politics at a time when that is not what is needed--as a matter of fact at a time when it is needed least--and that we do something that will be helpful for those hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers and their families.

That is why members of the New Democratic Party want this work done before considering the possibility of an election at some later date. Getting to the meat of the matter, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are unemployed and will continue to be unemployed, and there are more to come. The economists who are looking at this recession as it moves forward are saying on one hand there are signs that perhaps the recession is over, but it is not over for the workers of the country and it will not be over for a number of years.

There will not be a stalling of the rising unemployment we have experienced over the last number months. They are telling us that actually the number of unemployed is going to increase substantially. It is incumbent upon all of us to make sure that those supports and resources are in place so that those people and their families are looked after, in order to allow them to participate in the economy in a way will that will stimulate the economy. If we do not do that, we will be failing those who will not qualify for the unemployment supports that they need to look after themselves and their families, and we will be contributing to the worsening of this recession.

In June I was at a breakfast meeting in Sault Ste. Marie and listened to an economist from the Export Development Corporation. He told us that this recession is coming at us in waves. He described three of the waves we had already been through. He knew what he was talking about. He said that the third and perhaps most damaging and difficult wave for us to manage as a society and as an economy, is the wave that will see hundreds of thousands of people who have been unemployed fall off the unemployment rolls and on to welfare. Those hundreds of thousands of people would then begin to default on their mortgage payments, car payments, student loan payments, and many other things. Many men and women who have children, families and homes are trying to keep body and soul together, who are working to make their communities well will find themselves in a position where they will have little or nothing. Anyone in this country who has ever had to live on welfare will understand that it is not a happy situation.

I ran a soup kitchen in my community for about seven years before I got into politics. I say in all sincerity that there is no one in this country who of their own will would want to be on welfare. It is a debilitating, mind-numbing, paralyzing experience for anyone who has been forced to be on it. It alienates people from the workplace and eventually from their family and friends. In order to get back into the workforce and participate as they previously had would cost society, government and the community in which they live millions of dollars more than it would if we had simply made employment insurance available to them in the amount necessary for them to provide the basics for themselves, to pay the rent, feed their children, send their kids to school, participate in their community.

Because of the very difficult economy we are in, today in this place we speak about that which is of most importance to the people we represent. I ask all members in this place to work together to do the right thing on behalf of their constituents.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague made a great speech. From my personal interaction with him, I know of his hard work and compassion for the less fortunate in our communities.

One of the things I worked on since first being elected was the issue of providing increased opportunities for skilled trades workers. Recently I was able to participate in announcements at Conestoga College for the expansion of opportunities for skilled trades workers through the knowledge infrastructure program. In addition to that, my colleague will know that our government has made significant strides in encouraging apprenticeships with the incentive grant and the completion grant. These are important initiatives to address the issue of skilled trades labour.

With those provisions and all of the great provisions in Bill C-50 to reach long-tenured workers and provide additional training opportunities, I wonder if my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie could comment on what he thinks the reasons are that the Liberal Party has chosen to ignore the plight of the workers which my colleague has outlined so well.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not going to impugn motive on the Liberal Party.

I will say that even though the government has put in place some initiatives, and I give the Conservatives credit for putting this bill on the table because it certainly is a door we can all walk through and hopefully make some changes and improvements, it will only help, I think by the government's figures, 190,000 people.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of people right now who do not qualify for EI and there are more to come. We need to do more. We are not doing enough. That is my message to the House this afternoon.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, the House has a great deal of respect for the opinions and the justifications for supporting this bill that both the member for Sault Ste. Marie and the member for Welland have put forward.

I wonder if I could characterize the situation as being in a profound way like the proverbial joke, if it could be a joke, that the operation was a success, but the patient died.

Is it not clear that if there is a sarcastic and cynical attitude toward the approach of 360 hours on qualification for EI that has been suggested as the right approach to dealing with seasonal and regional disparities, with workers on low fixed incomes, with dealing with the issues of the thousands of people who will go on welfare because we do not have the right approach, are we not falling into that cynical approach where it was quoted, and I say this with respect to one of the members from the government side, we are suppressing job creation with this 45-day work year, we are undermining the deep rooted Canadian values for hard work?

We agree with those, but by supporting this are we going to encourage the government away from the right solution, the very solution that we share in common? How can we avoid that if that is the kind of cynicism that exists on the other side?

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Madam Speaker, again, just as I did not impugn motive on the Liberals, I am not going to impugn motive on the Conservatives.

I will say that it is not enough, and it really is not enough, and there is a lot more that can be done. I spoke in my speech about the tons of work and ideas that have been brought before this House through the various bills that have been tabled to reform EI. We really need to sit down and look at that and do something with it.

This is an opening to bring forward our best ideas, without cynicism, with great hope. and to spend at least $1 billion on the unemployed in this country rather than $300 million on an election that would not give us anything at the end day, or at least would not give it to us quickly enough. It may give us more if the makeup of this place were different after the election, which we can all only hope for.

At this point the question is whether we take advantage, at this moment, of $1 billion to spend on unemployed workers with the possibility of some improvements when we consider this bill in committee, or whether we simply say we will go to an election and spend $300 million, which, at the end of the day, would not help those who are unemployed in our communities.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-50, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act . This enactment seeks to amend the Employment Insurance Act until September 11, 2010, to increase the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid to certain claimants. It also seeks to increase the maximum number of weeks for which benefits may be paid to certain claimants not in Canada. That is in the summary of the bill.

I believe, and members on this side of the House in the Liberal Party believe, that it is too little too late for Canada's unemployed. Because this is a confidence matter, I and the Liberal Party will be opposing the bill.

It did not have to be like this. Back in June, the Liberal Party was able to convince the Conservatives that we could work together on this issue. We struck an employment insurance working group. However, the Conservatives were more interested in playing games than actually helping Canada's unemployed.

We had agreed to discuss two key issues as part of our mandate. The first was to allow self-employed Canadians to participate voluntarily in the employment insurance system and the second was to improve the eligibility requirements in order to ensure reasonable fairness.

Despite this, the Conservatives did nothing to bring forward any meaningful proposal. Instead, they spent the summer attacking our ideas with fake number that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed as incorrect.

The Conservatives' total cost estimate, including static and dynamic costs of $2.4 billion, presented to the employment insurance working group on August 14 overstates the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard of EI eligibility.

As the Parliamentary Budget Officer believes, the government's dynamic cost estimate is flawed. More important, the Parliamentary Budget Officer also believes that only static costs should be considered in costing the proposal, given the structure of the program and since the proposed changes to the EI system are in effect for only one year.

Based on the material presented to the EI working group, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's calculations show that the government's own estimate of the static cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard is about $1.148 billion, and that includes the administrative costs.

In the opinion of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the $1.14 billion static cost estimate is a reasonable estimate of the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard of EI eligibility. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the government's total cost estimate in excess of $4 billion presented on August 6 is not consistent with the proposed 360-hour national standard, as it includes unemployed individuals not covered by the proposal, for example, special beneficiaries, new entrants and re-entrants to the labour force.

It was Liberal members who brought forward these ideas on how we could truly and meaningfully help long-tenured workers. Yet the minister stands in the House and says with a straight face that we walked away from the table. There was nothing to walk away from. The Conservatives had made up their minds right from the start that they would be unwilling to co-operate.

The government says one thing and does another. How can we work with that? How can we trust that?

Just today, as I heard the minister speak in the House, I was astonished to hear the minister state that no Liberals attended a briefing on the bill which she held yesterday. I would have been delighted to attend such a briefing, but I was never invited. None of my Liberal colleagues were invited either.

How did we get to this situation? It did not have to be this way.

This again raises questions about how can we believe the government, how can we have confidence in the government.

After all, the Prime Minister himself broke his promise not to tax income trusts, which hurt many seniors and others in my riding. He promised he would never appoint senators and yet, in one year, he has appointed more people to the Senate than any other person since Confederation. He promised fixed election dates, but he broke his own law and called an election anyway. He promised not to raise taxes and right after being elected, he raised personal income taxes. Now, he will be imposing a $13-billion job-killing payroll tax, breaking yet another promise.

This flip-flopping and a trail of broken promises would be funny, but this is a very serious matter. The government claims that it wants to help workers, but just as it tries to extend a few crumbs to the unemployed with this bill, it will simultaneously raise taxes on middle-class families and small businesses. How does this help our economy as it struggles to recover through this recession? By the way, it was a recession the Prime Minister would not even acknowledge until it was impossible to ignore. Just over a month ago the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development herself said:

We have to make sure, also, that when we come out of this recession that we are not going to be burdening employers and employees with huge increases in payroll taxes.

How does this reconcile with her comments and her increase in payroll taxes? Have her beliefs changed so quickly? This is the reason. This is an example of why we have lost confidence in the government. We cannot believe a single word its members say.

What is more surprising than the government's position and the lack of confidence that we have in it is the fact that the Conservative's coalition partner, the NDP, has decided to give up on its principles just for partisan positioning. There was rarely a time in the past two Parliaments when the NDP members did not remind us all about how many times they opposed the Conservatives. The NDP members have not been interested in making Parliament work. In fact, they blamed the official opposition whenever we did work with the government. Any time we worked in a meaningful way to help Canadians, to move the agenda forward, they mocked us. They made fun of us. They thumped their chests. They opposed budgets and other money bills seconds after they were tabled. Yet as soon as the Liberal Party made up its mind that we had lost confidence in the government, the NDP always changed its mind. When their vote really mattered, when their vote really counted, they panicked.

Did their supporters ask them to do this? No. In fact Canadian Auto Workers president has described the reforms that are being presented today in Bill C-50 as crumbs for the unemployed, dismissing them as doing little to help the vast majority of the unemployed. Perhaps then they have found some common ground with the Conservatives. Perhaps the government has given into their demands. Not at all. In fact, the Globe and Mail calls this offer thin gruel for the NDP. Why would the NDP members sell out their supporters and their beliefs? I think the Toronto Star summed it up best yesterday when it wrote:

...the New Democratic Party, watching its political fortunes tumble and its financial contributions trickle in, is simply trying to stave off another election even if it means breathing life into a right-wing government.

The NDP, which claims to be the voice of Canadian workers, has abandoned those same workers just because it is too afraid to take a stand.

Let me give another example. The member for Windsor—Tecumseh, a well-respected colleague of ours, said, “the bill could be a particular letdown for many in Windsor because contrary to the human resources minister's claim workers having paid in seven of the previous ten years would see extended benefits, the actual time period is much longer”.

There is a reluctance, a hesitation, a lack of conviction, so why are they supporting the bill?

I want to share a few stories in my riding about the importance of EI, because the economic crisis has hit people in Mississauga—Brampton South very hard. Our unemployment rate hovers around 11%, compared to a rate of about 6.5% when the Conservatives came to power. Within four years we have seen the unemployment rate in that region almost double. Nationally, over 1.6 million Canadians are unemployed, and as of June we had 816,000 Canadians collecting EI. That is an increase of 39,500 people over the previous month.

To put that in perspective, Mississauga—Brampton South has 44,000 households. That is nearly one job lost for every home in my riding, and that is in just over one month. This is a situation unprecedented, yet the Conservatives propose only piecemeal changes and only then when they are backed into a corner.

Are people better off today than they were four years ago? That is the question I ask people when I meet them in my riding, and the answer is no.

I have heard heartbreaking stories from constituents who have fallen on hard times and have been treated very poorly by the government. For example, one gentleman was laid off last September but he was too proud to apply for EI right away. Yet when financial circumstances finally forced him to apply, he was told by the government that he only qualified for $68 a week because he no longer had enough hours. I doubt anyone could survive on such an amount.

Another woman in my riding took a voluntary package from her employer and left her workplace in order to save a colleague's job. The government told her that she would have to wait until her package ran out before she could apply for EI. When she did, which she was told to do, she was denied her benefits because they had given her bad advice. These are all documented cases in my riding.

As another example, a woman struggled to make ends meet with a new baby in the house when maternity benefits were delayed for three months after she had given birth.

One especially tragic story is of a constituent who was denied EI benefits because he was literally one hour short of the standard. Yet, if he lived in Burlington, a short drive from his home in Mississauga, he would have qualified. None of these stories seems to matter to the Conservatives, because they did nothing to bring forward meaningful legislation or proposals on EI reform.

In our critique of Bill C-50, I have been very clear about our concerns and why we in the Liberal Party are opposing it. What is our plan? What is our proposal? What is it that we are willing to present as an alternative?

Having 58 different standards for eligibility for EI is an obvious problem. Every Canadian should have equal access and not be judged based on his or her postal code. This speaks to Liberal values, a belief in fairness and equality, which underpins all of our policies. That is why the Liberal leader has been advocating for one national standard.

We propose the 360-hour standard of eligibility. If implemented quickly and in a timely manner, this proposal could help another 150,000 people out of the 1.6 million Canadians who are unemployed.

We even indicated that we would be flexible in terms of what that standard would be, but again the Conservatives have responded by ignoring our ideas and replying with propaganda and misinformation. We hear that time and time again. They continue to attack our ideas and misinform and mislead Canadians as opposed to having meaningful dialogue and debate on the substantive matters of our policy proposals.

I demonstrated that very clearly when I talked about our cost estimates, which were verified by the PBO, as opposed to their outrageous cost estimates, which were part of their propaganda and misinformation exercise.

This is not a Liberal way. We have proposals to fix EI and provide the support that Canadians need to weather this financial storm. The government has proven it cannot be trusted to look out for the interests of its citizens. It has lost our confidence and the confidence of Canadians. Canadians do not deserve crumbs. They deserve real, meaningful reform and help.

I have outlined very clearly why we have lost confidence and why we cannot trust the government. I have also very clearly articulated some examples that I have seen first-hand in my riding of how the EI system in its current form is not helping people and how people are falling through the cracks.

We will continue to work hard to earn the trust of Canadians, because I believe the proposal that I described, that Liberals have been advocating for months and months now, on which we tried to work with the government and other parties, is a proposal that makes sense and will really help people.

We can do better, we will do better and I am confident that with the trust of Canadians, whenever the next election takes place we will be able to earn that trust and form a Liberal government that will be able to implement real, meaningful EI reform.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the speech of my colleague across the way and I have really just one fundamental question.

I am on the finance committee. Yesterday, we had the Canadian Labour Congress in front of us. The Canadian Labour Congress was talking about employment insurance, the length of time to qualify, and so on. They indicated that they were interested in a qualifying time of 350 or 360 hours. I cannot remember the exact number.

I asked the member from the Canadian Labour Congress who was presenting in front of us the direct question how long they had been asking for this change to EI. I asked if they had been to the budget deliberations before the budget process. They had been here for years and years.

The Canadian Labour Congress have been asking for years and years, long before the Conservative government took office. Why did the Liberal Party not implement the 360-hour EI requirements when they were in power?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud of our track record when we were in government. We extended paternity and maternity benefits under EI. Not only that, we fixed the fiscal house that the Conservatives had left in complete disarray when Mr. Mulroney left a $42 billion deficit. We worked hard with the rest of Canadians to balance our books.

However, the question being asked is why we need a national standard today. Why do we need a national standard that can really help Canadians? The answer is very simple. We have an unprecedented number of people who are unemployed. People need assistance. There are over 816,000 people collecting EI. We are fighting for regional fairness.

Now is the time to do it, because when they get that money, they spend that money. Not only does it help people, but it also helps us during our economic recovery. That is why we are advocating for that proposal today.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member who is boasting about his party.

How can he stand here today giving advice on employment insurance? We know that when the Liberals were in power, they squandered the money of workers and took more than $50 billion. That was not the government's money; it belonged to workers and employers. The Liberals took this money to pay down the massive federal government debt. Not even Mulroney's previous Conservative government did that. It did not have the audacity to take money from workers and employers in a misguided effort to run the country. It continued to run the country without taking money from workers.

Today, I would like to know how he can rise in this House and tell us he has recommendations, when the Jean Chrétien government, with finance minister Paul Martin, squandered the money of workers? What nerve. Shame on him.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Madam Speaker, last time I checked, I thought we were debating Bill C-50, a bill that the Conservatives have brought forward.

Speaking to that bill, the flaw that we have seen and clearly demonstrated is that it lacks regional representation. It does not deal with regional fairness, fairness that would help forestry workers in the province of Quebec and fairness that would help seasonal workers across this country.

It is surprising to see the NDP flip-flop. It is also surprising that the Bloc is so outraged. We are making our position very clear. We are opposing the government and we would count on their support in our proposal.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, my hon. friend talked about propaganda and misinformation. Liberals promised a national child care system. They promised a national housing program. They promised to pull out of NAFTA. Talk about propaganda and misinformation.

This member has the audacity to talk about breathing life into government. They did it 79 times because they were cowards and afraid of an election. Now, the NDP is supporting this because it is good for people and because Canadians do not want an election. He talks about the importance of EI. They ignored this program for 13 years and did nothing. I worked and helped unemployed workers for 13 years and sat across from them when they got their pittance of a weekly allowance that the government did nothing to improve.

They did nothing to change the rules that disqualified people if they quit or were fired. The Liberal government did nothing for that. They talk about regional differences. The Liberal government brought in the regional differences for EI and they say they cannot survive on the amount of EI today. The Liberal government did not raise the amounts of EI for 13 years. There was only a $50 difference in 13 years.

They did not care a whit about unemployed workers and he stands up and deigns to criticize the New Democrats in the House. The sweet stench of a hypocrite is something else.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I would ask the hon. member not to use unparliamentary words such as that and to withdraw that particular word.