Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Essex for his enthusiasm. He always jumps to his feet in my support. I take it as a great compliment.
Bill C-50 puts us in a situation where, once again, we bring up employment insurance. I have been here for five and a half years. Time and time again we have talked about employment insurance. We have several amendments on the table. Most of them have to do with the fact that members want to lower the qualification period, or at least the barriers to qualifications in that first period. With Bill C-50, we find ourselves talking about the back end of the system, meaning one gets additional weeks. Usually we do not get that. In private members' legislation we usually get a qualifying period that allows people who are unable to find work to benefit when under normal circumstances they would not.
I welcome this debate. However, I believe the bill completely lacks a focus on those people who are unable to qualify.
Over the past few years we have seen several resolutions passed in the House; some have been voted down and some have been voted for. They have included things like lowering the hours to qualify, such as 360 hours for re-entrance. We also talked about 55% to 60% of the benefits to be paid out when one is receiving EI benefits.
Some of the other issues, including the two-week waiting period, also come up, but time and time again they come up as private members' bills. Now we have government legislation in this direction.
Let me start with my own riding of Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor. I want to talk about two types of industry and juxtapose their situation with the intent of this legislation. Let me start with seasonal work and the shrimp plant workers. Work in the plant is a seasonal occupation, as anyone in this country can understand. I am hearing a lot from people who work in particular shrimp plants. Prices have been low. There has been labour unrest in certain cases. They cannot seem to settle on a price. People are unable to qualify for EI in the off season because they lack the hours to qualify.
Bill C-50 does absolutely nothing to address that. At some point I hope the government will give credence to that issue. I would like to see it go to 360 hours, for the reasons I just stated. The majority of my constituents would feel the same way, and I get a lot of feedback from them.
Let me look at another aspect, and this is where we get to the crux of the matter on Bill C-50. Time and again members of the government will stand in the House and say the bill does wonderful things for the long-tenured worker. I would like to give an illustration of a long-tenured worker who has many questions. I live in the town of Bishop's Falls near Grand Falls-Windsor. It recently suffered a major setback when the AbitibiBowater mill closed in the spring of this year. There were upward of 700 people who lost their jobs. Many of these people have called me. They were loggers. We go back to the idea of seasonal work. They were loggers who worked so many weeks of the year and the other weeks could only receive 55% of their income through EI.
Many people will say they do not want to feed into that. They do not want to have someone claiming EI time and time again when they can do other work. One has to understand that this is an aspect of rural Canada. All parties in the House agree it is difficult for seasonal workers in rural areas to get work in the off season and therefore this system was required. We still need someone to log our forests. We still need someone to farm. We still need people to pave our roads. Rural Canada, especially rural Newfoundland, is now so popular because of its rural aspect. Who will be waiting to show people around? It will be tourism workers. They will be in the same situation. People ask why they cannot do something else. In a town of 100 people or less, there is not a lot of industry to go around. This type of policy helps sustain communities such as this.
I have 172 communities in my riding and only one town, Grand Falls-Windsor, has 13,000 people. I have a collection of communities that is vast but the people are proud and this is the type of legislation they need to sustain themselves within their community.
I want to go back to the logger situation. Bill C-50 is what I have a problem with and the loggers want me to ask the government about a situation. If a claimant is paid less than 36 weeks of regular benefits in the 260 weeks before the beginning of the benefit period, they can qualify. What does that mean? Of the 260 weeks, which is approximately five years, if people have received benefits for over 36 weeks, they are out and receive nothing more. Loggers are included in that but my definition of a logger is a long-tenured worker. What do the Conservatives say to them? What do they say to the shrimp plant workers in this situation?
There is a lot of talk in my province from many corners and not just us. I will quote an individual who has done extensive work on the EI system. I respect her opinion because she probably knows more about the EI system than any person I know. Her name is Lana Payne and she is the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Labour Federation. She has a few things to say about this. She said that Bill C-50 divides the unemployed into two groups: those deemed deserving by the Conservatives of extra benefits and those who are not.
She went on to say that the proposed changes by leaving so many unemployed out essentially blames people for their job losses by penalizing workers who may have had to avail of EI benefits in the past five years.
That brings me to my next point. Many Conservatives have said that they have had people working in the auto industry and had auto plants in their riding and have people who work in newsprint mills and other types of mills. I have a question for them. It is not seasonal work, but in the past five years those mills have suffered shutdowns. The mill was shut down for whatever reason: too much inventory or market conditions persist such that they had to close the mill down for a period of time.What did these people do? They went on EI. For a mill worker, a long-tenured worker, if he or she has received more than 36 weeks, which is about seven weeks a year, which is highly possible, they are out.
The Conservatives tell us that they had to cut it off somewhere. Well, this is not the place to be doing that. I do not think it was well thought out in this situation. We could have done something for these individuals. They are long-tenured workers who, through no fault of their own, were in a situation where they were laid off for a period of time which put them in a very rough situation.
Lana Payne said it quite well. As a matter of fact, it is not just Newfoundland and Labrador but it is also the Canadian federation, the CAW. It is of the same ilk where it claims that the government will qualify 190,000 people. People with the CAW are experts. They are not paid to confront the government. They are not just the opposition. These are people who actually stick up for the people who have jobs or used to. I do admit that some people in the mill at Grand Falls-Windsor where I am from will receive extra benefits, if need be, but a lot of them have gone away to work which disqualifies them yet once again.
Finally, just before last January, if workers were laid off before 2009, they are out. So much for Lewisporte Wholesalers in my riding. I do agree that we need more benefits but this particular bill leaves out so many to the point that it becomes an injustice to actually spend so much time to help so few people.