Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the hon. member for Bourassa on Bill C-291 an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (waiting period and maximum special benefits).
I truly sympathize with those Canadians who are battling cancer or other illnesses, that last longer than 15 weeks. For example, we know that 70 Canadian men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer every day and 11 of those 70 men will die from it.
Thousands of Canadians, including my executive assistant, Kenton Dueck, my EDA president, Steven Ladd, my son, Chetan Shory, and members from all sides of the House are fundraising this month to fight prostate cancer and I applaud them for that. These battles have no partisan or political lines.
However, my colleague's bill would cost approximately $730 million a year, which, I am sure most of us would agree is a significant expenditure of public moneys in a time of fiscal restraint. We need to ask whether increasing the maximum for special benefits from 15 weeks to 50 weeks is necessary or justifies the moneys that would have to be spent. I would respectfully argue that the targeted changes our Conservative government has made to the benefits system is a smarter way to support Canadians facing health and other life challenges.
Our Conservative government has made the employment insurance system more accessible and fair for millions of Canadians, especially in the face of the challenges many of us have experienced during the global economic recession.
There are several ways in which the federal government provides for those facing a long-term disabling illness, particularly through the Canadian pension plan long-term disability pension. This is in addition to provincial social assistance programs and private long-term disability insurance. This benefit is meant to be a temporary measure for temporary illnesses that prevent someone from working.
In a clear majority of cases, the program does meet the needs of individuals, as 70% of individuals do not exhaust the current 15-week sickness provision.
Hard-working Canadians deserve to be able to balance work and family life. Our government believes in a strong EI system, one that delivers fair and equitable benefits for those who need them most.
During the global economic downturn, our government moved quickly to preserve and create jobs and to help families, workers and businesses.
In fact, we have rebounded quite substantially. More than 600,000 new jobs have been recovered since the depths of the recession in July 2009. Our unemployment rate is now down to 7.3%, one of the lowest levels since December 2008.
However, the economic challenges are not behind us. Our Prime Minister has been clear on the direction the government will take on fiscal matters when he said, “We have sought to strike the right balance between supporting jobs and growth, and reducing our deficit in a responsible manner.”
When Canada was hit hardest by the global recession, our government demonstrated its flexibility by putting temporary measures in the employment insurance program to assist Canadians, both workers and employers.
The economic downturn created exceptional circumstances for our government that required an exceptional response, and respond we did.
For example, we temporarily provided an extra five weeks of EI benefits to help those hardest hit by the recession. I am pleased to say that about 1.3 million EI claimants benefited from this initiative.
We have also helped long-tenured workers renew or upgrade their skills under the career transition assistance program. Close to 15,000 long-tenured workers have participated and around $95 million in benefits has been paid.
We further demonstrated our commitment to help workers and employers through temporary work-sharing measures. About 300,000 employees have participated in more than 10,000 work-sharing agreements since 2009.
Work sharing helps employers and workers avoid layoffs, while redistributing the workload when there is a temporary reduction in the normal level of business activity. In fact, Canada has been a world leader in work-sharing agreements and governments around the world are looking to Canada's program as a model.
I should also point out that, through the Minister of Finance, we introduced a bill to support Canadian businesses that included a temporary hiring credit for small business to encourage further hiring.
Economic challenges during the global recession have placed significant pressures on the Canadian labour market and, in turn, the EI program. That is why we took decisive action to freeze premiums for 2010 and to limit the rate increase for subsequent years.
Now, this is the key. In an uncertain economic environment, a balance needs to be struck between supporting the recovery and ensuring that the program can survive over time. I think we can all agree that we want a sound system in place for many generations to come, for our children, our grandchildren and so on. The decisions we make today will affect the future of this program.
Our government has shown fairness by extending access to EI special benefits, including maternity, parental, sickness and compassionate care benefits to the self-employed who opt into the EI program. By extending special benefits to the self-employed across Canada, we are supporting them in balancing their work and family responsibilities.
Our government introduced a measure to extend the EI parental benefit window for Canadian Forces members who are ordered either to return to duty while on parental leave or whose parental leave is deferred as a result of a tour of duty. Supporting our men and women in uniform is simply the right thing to do. We all know they have sacrificed and put their lives on the line for Canada, so we must stand up for them when they need us.
Compassionate care benefits are available to persons who have to be away from work temporarily to provide care or support to a family member who is gravely ill with a significant risk of death. The eligibility criteria of the EI compassionate care benefit has been modified by broadening the definition of a family member. Now it can mean a sibling, grandparent, grandchild, in-law, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, foster parent, ward, guardian or someone a gravely ill person considers the claimant to be like a family member. This what we mean when we talk about allowing more flexibility and fairness in the system.
We have taken actions to enhance and expand the EI program to help both workers and employers weather the economic storm. We have also enhanced and expanded the EI program through a number of legislative measures to ensure that it meets the needs of Canadian workers and their families in a fair and flexible way. These are real people we are dealing with, and we can never forget that.
That said, our government has a responsibility to Canadian taxpayers and we take that role very seriously. In Calgary Northeast, for example, if I ask Romi Sidhu and Pawan Sharma, who are self-employed, running small businesses, whether they want their taxes to go up, what are they going to say? Simply, they will say, “No way. You're sounding like a Liberal or an NDP.” During the last election, Canadian voters were given two very distinct visions when it came to our economy. They could opt for the tax and spend Liberals-NDP-Bloc coalition, or they could choose a strong, stable, national Conservative majority government under the leadership of our Prime Minister, a government that would focus on protecting jobs and economic growth during these uncertain times.
We all know that Canadian voters made a clear choice and this bill, as it stands, would require a significant expenditure of public moneys in a time of fiscal restraint. For that reason, despite our greatest sympathies, we cannot support the bill.