): Madam Speaker, I am very pleased today to speak to Bill C-13, which recommends changes to employment insurance. The summary of the bill says: “This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act to extend the benefit period and the period during which parental benefits may be paid for Canadian Forces members whose period of parental leave is deferred or who are directed to return to duty from parental leave.”
To begin, I want to say that my party and I are certainly going to support this bill. We have to recognize that our troops, who are defending our country or democracy everywhere in the world on a Canadian mission, deserve to be given consideration in this regard so they are not penalized. Because if they had not gone overseas, they would have been able to take parental leave, for example, to be with their newborn child. That is so important.
Most of the people in this House are parents. I can tell you that in our day, we did not have parental leave. I have three daughters and two of them have had children. Parental leave was something wonderful for them as parents, but it was also wonderful for their children. We are living today in a world where both spouses work and the first thing the newborn experiences is its parents not being there. The child is sent to a daycare centre because the parents have to work. A bill like this one is appropriate. It gives parents the chance to experience the birth of their child and to live with the child for the first year of its life. That is wonderful.
Our soldiers, our troops, do us honour everywhere they go. The Bloc member also clearly stated other benefits we might give our troops. This is one benefit we can support. The member who introduced the bill said he knocked on a door and a soldier answered, and he was the one who made him aware of this issue.
With respect to employment insurance, I can say we have knocked on a lot of doors. The people have made us aware of the problems they have with the employment insurance scheme and the problems that causes in society. The government has a surplus of $57 to $60 billion dollars in the employment insurance fund. This is a program paid for entirely by workers. Many people are not entitled to employment insurance, given the eligibility criteria—a minimum of 420 hours or 840 hours worked, in the case of a first claim. A lot of people are excluded from the employment insurance system.
For women, the same is true. There are a lot of women who work part-time and cannot accumulate the number of hours required. These people are not eligible for employment insurance. That is why there are over 800,000 people in Canada who pay into the employment insurance scheme and are not eligible because of the restrictions the government has imposed.
The government is making piecemeal changes. That is what it is doing. At the same time, as I said, there are many other changes it could make. I know this is a bill for our troops and I am going to come back to it quickly. But we have to look at the human element, really, and the changes being asked for.
There is the case of Ms. Marie-Hélène Dubé, who lives in Montreal North. She circulated a petition that was presented here by a member of the Bloc Québécois. Signed by 62,766 people, it asks that sick leave be extended to 52 weeks. We have to see the human side of this. People work their entire lives and then have the misfortune of falling ill. These people are not fortunate to fall ill. They are very unlucky and very unhappy about it. A person gets sick and then finds she has cancer. Before remission occurs, this person has to take care of herself and take the treatments prescribed by specialists for a year. But after 15 weeks, she no longer qualifies for employment insurance. Unless she works for a company that provides insurance, she has no income and is thrown onto welfare. It is totally unacceptable for us to have a program belonging to the employers and employees who have worked for it but for which people do not qualify.
I want to return to what happens on both sides, the military side and the civilian side, beginning with the military. The government says we should support our troops. There is nothing wrong with that. We should support our troops and we do, even though the Conservatives try to imply that the opposition does not support the troops because we disagree with them about some of the missions the government sends them on. There is a difference between a mission and supporting the troops. We support our troops, but sometimes there are missions with which we disagree. We live in a democracy and have the right to express our views in the House of Commons. That is what we were elected to do: to express our views on things like this.
They ask us to support our troops, our veterans, our soldiers and our military personnel. Early this week, I got a phone call from one of our soldiers. He said he had been in the army for 20 years and had a disability that was officially acknowledged by the army. As a result, he was put in the reserve army—I am not sure about the exact military term—and could stay there for three years with pay but without serving in the regular forces. The government knew he was going to retire. It knew he would be finished with the forces at the end of May and would receive an official pension from the federal government. The army told him, though, that he will start getting his pension 8 to 12 weeks from now.
The Conservatives say we should support our troops and our veterans, but here I am, forced to get involved. I have to ask National Defence why it needs 12 weeks to cut a cheque for a soldier when it has known for three years that he was going to retire. The cheque will not be ready at the end of May when he retires, and he will have to wait 12 weeks without any income. Is that how they support our troops?
A man called me this week and told me that he has been in the Canadian forces for 20 years and that he would be retiring in three years. He told me that because of a medical problem, which the forces has recognized, he was put into another category and is no longer in the regular forces. He said that the military has known for three years that he will be taking his pension this month but he was told that he would not be able to get his pension for at least 8 to 12 weeks from now. He wants to know who will feed his family.
Is that how we support our troops? Our troops go to war, they defend our country and they defend democracy around the world, and when they come back they need our support. I support Bill C-13 because it would give our soldiers, when they come back from a mission, a break of 52 weeks to spend with their families. They would receive parental leave like any other Canadian.
I would like the government to think about going further than that. I may put an amendment forward at committee, but if I do, I know the government will get around it by saying that it requires a royal recommendation because it requires spending money.
I hope the government will be nice and fix the problem that it has created for our troops.
A press release issued April 19, reads:
The newly established Rotation Bar was presented today, recognizing Canadians who have served more than once in Afghanistan. Recipients included more than 30 Canadian Forces (CF) personnel, four members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), two police officers of the Ottawa Police Service and three civilian employees of the Non-public Fund of the CF.
I suggest to the government that clause 3 of Bill C-13 be amended by adding after line 5, page 2 the following:adding after line 5 on page 2 the following:
(3.02) For the purposes of subsection (3.01), a member of a police force who is a Canadian citizen in the employ of Her Majesty in right of Canada or a Canadian citizen under contract with the Government of Canada, and who has been deployed as part of a mission outside Canada is considered to be a claimant.
I believe this is reasonable because we are not talking about millions of people. We have police officers who are deployed in various countries to conduct missions and help in reconstruction efforts. We have other members of police forces who go to those countries.
I know of a specific case. RCMP Sergeant Gallagher lost his life after landing in Haiti the day of the earthquake. He went to that country to help the Haitian community build up its police forces. We have other citizens in similar situations.
That is why I take Bill C-13 seriously. It is a good bill, but we have to consider who we are talking about.
We cannot say the situation is resolved because a Conservative MP knocked on a door and met a soldier. It is reasonable for the House to study this bill and refer it to committee where we can share our points of view and get the government's reaction.
If our government calls on our police forces, whether the RCMP or city or municipal police, to help other countries within the framework of a Canadian mission, I think that is the same as sending a soldier. We ask our police to take part in such missions, which are quite dangerous.
If we ask our police officers to go to Afghanistan to help that country's police force, it is dangerous for them as well. They go abroad to do a job on behalf of our country, just as the military does. For that reason, they should be included in this group.
Military and police veterans must benefit from the same programs upon their return from a mission. That is why there is a flaw in BillC-13. All those who are sent on a mission by our country should be treated in the same way.
Clause 3 of Bill C-13 should be amended by adding after line 5 on page 2 the following: “(3.02) For the purposes of subsection (3.01), a member of a police force who is a Canadian citizen in the employ of Her Majesty in right of Canada or a Canadian citizen under contract with the Government of Canada and who has been deployed as part of a mission outside Canada is considered to be a claimant”.
That is just reasonable. We are not talking about thousands of people. We are talking about a minimum number of people who are sent there by our government. The jobs they do are very dangerous too. They are sent on missions, for example, to help the Afghan police reconstruct their force. They are in dangerous areas.
If they are not sent, they are not going to be claiming that 52 extra weeks. However, if the government calls upon them to be outside the country to help our soldiers around the world, they should be in that same category.
The reason I am reluctant to make the change is that I think it is really important that we treat everyone the same. We believe this would be going in the right direction.
At the same time, we have problems across the country with people losing their jobs. The EI program belongs to the workers. All across the country there are workers who lose their jobs. We are in an economic crisis and the government should be able to make other changes, not piecemeal like the way it is being done.
We sat at one time together, all parties, and made a report in the human resources committee with 28 recommendations. Those recommendations should come forward. The government should look at the big picture of what the problems are with employment insurance and why people are not qualifying.
It should be 360 hours. Why do people who are sick have to have 600 hours to qualify for employment insurance? It is nonsense. No one chooses to be sick. Employment insurance should be there to help the workers. It is insurance to help the workers. It is not a tax to bring in funds for the government to pay down the deficit and bring it to zero by using the employment insurance premiums. That money should go back to the workers. We should work toward that and have the government do the right thing.
Our debate on this bill in the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities will be truly important. I hope that the Minister of National Defence heard what I said. I hope that the government heard. I know it heard. The Prime Minister's Office listens to all debates and I am certain that it knows what is going on and that it is concerned about our police force. It would be unfortunate for our police forces and other citizens who are sent on missions commanded by the government if they were not protected by Bill C-13 and if they did not have these 52 additional weeks of entitlement to parental leave. It is important to a family that parents be with their children. The Conservative government says it is pro-family. I say prove it.
The Conservative government says it is pro-family. If it is pro-family, then it should prove it by accepting my proposed amendment.