Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to take part in this afternoon's debate on Bill C-9 concerning the government's budget.
We have amendments to part 24, which changes the Employment Insurance Act by establishing an account in the accounts of Canada to be known as the employment insurance operating account and closing the employment insurance account and removing it from the accounts of Canada. It also repeals sections 76 and 80 of that act and makes consequential amendments in relation to the creation of the new account. This part also makes technical amendments to clarify provisions of the Budget Implementation Act, 2008 and the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act that deal with the board.
As members will recall, in 1986, the Auditor General said that the employment insurance account should be integrated into the government's consolidated revenue fund. At the time, the government, companies and employees were contributing money to the employment insurance fund.
In 1988, after the employment insurance fund was integrated into the consolidated revenue fund, the Mulroney government started to chip away at employment insurance.
As I recall, that is when things started to change. Brian Mulroney's Conservative government was in power, and the Liberals were the official opposition. I remember that in 1989, in one of the papers—this is not the first time I have brought this up in the House—my predecessor, Doug Young, who was his party's employment insurance critic at the time, urged all New Brunswickers to fight changes to employment insurance because such changes would be disastrous for New Brunswick. That is why I said this is not the first time I have talked about this issue. I want to remind the House about the Liberals' attitude at the time.
In the spring of 1993—even at the end of winter that year—Jean Chrétien was the opposition leader. He then became prime minister. He sent a letter to a group of women in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, who were working to stop changes to employment insurance. As opposition leader, Jean Chrétien wrote that the government should not take action against victims, people and workers. He wrote that the government should focus on economic development. The country needed economic development to create jobs for people.
To everyone's great surprise, when the Liberals were elected in the fall of 1993, they continued along the same course. We cannot say they were any worse than the Conservatives because the Conservatives had begun employment insurance reform. We do not know how far they would have gone. The Liberals had taken over the ship. They had taken over the tiller and started focusing on employment insurance. They also started thinking that what was in place was not so bad. Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had agreed to the Auditor General's recommendation to put the money into the consolidated revenue fund. The Liberals realized that this gave them more money and that employment insurance contributions gave them more money.
The Conservative government had increased premiums to roughly $3.08 or $3.20 for every $100 and the employer paid 1.3 or 1.5 times that amount. In other words, this represented roughly $8. It was a cash cow.
Money was coming in and cuts were being made to employment insurance. The worst cuts came in 1996: the number of hours to qualify was increased to 910; 420 hours were required in areas where the unemployment rate was greater than 13%; new entrants had to accumulate 910 hours; 700 hours were required in areas with low unemployment; 700 hours were required for a person who was sick or disabled to be granted special leave; 700 hours were required for maternity and parental leave. So much money was flowing into the employment insurance fund that it could not be ignored. The federal government was running a $565 billion deficit. It reduced the deficit by $92 billion, $57 billion of which came from the employment insurance fund.
Paul Martin, who was the finance minister at the time, told Canadians to tighten their belts to eliminate the deficit and pay down the debt. He robbed the employment insurance fund to pay down the debt and achieve a zero deficit.
At the time, the Conservatives, who make up the new Conservative government, condemned the theft from the employment insurance fund. Surprise, surprise, they returned to power in 2006 and this continued on into 2010. Now, they have presented Bill C-9, which is some 900 pages about the budget, and in which the government legalizes this theft from the employment insurance fund. That is what is going on here. By creating this new board, by creating a new fund and putting only $2 billion in it, the government is legalizing the biggest national and federal theft in the history of Canada.
I am calling it a theft, because workers pay employment insurance premiums out of their paycheques as security in case they lose their jobs. It is not meant to be used to pay down the government's debt. Now, people are in need.
We have just been through a serious economic crisis. Some people have used up their employment insurance benefits and do not have a job. We could increase the number of benefit weeks. We could base the calculation on the best 12 weeks instead of the best 14 weeks. We could eliminate the divisor of 14, which would give the best 12 weeks. We could also increase benefits from 55% to 60%. We could give these workers a chance.
In other countries, like France, for example, workers receive 75% of their income. When I brought up the idea of increasing the amount people receive, when we asked the government to increase the number of weeks, all the Conservative government could think to say was that if we were to do that, people would work 10 weeks and would receive 52 weeks of employment insurance benefits. They would work only 360 hours and would receive EI the rest of the year. The Conservatives have no faith in Canadian workers. That is the problem. They have no faith in our fellow citizens.
I asked a member of the French national assembly if paying benefits of up to 75% of wages made people want to receive employment insurance benefits rather than work. His response was altogether different. He said that he truly believes in workers and citizens, and added that they are very hard-working and that they want to work. They pay into the employment insurance program, which protects them in the event they lose their jobs. He added that if these workers want to pay themselves a wage while they are unemployed, it is good for the economy and good for everyone. It is good for the regions and it is good for small and medium-sized businesses. When a citizen receives benefits, he does not take off the next morning for a sunny spot such as Florida.
Instead, he goes grocery shopping. He buys something, or pays his bills. It is good for our economy, for our local economy.
It is unfortunate to see that the government has included all sorts of things in Bill C-9. And the first thing it will say is that we voted against it, that we voted against the huge monster it has created. We cannot support this omnibus Bill C-9.