Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the NDP motion before the House. I know we have been in the House all day debating this very important motion and we are getting toward the end of the debate today, so I am happy to have an opportunity to speak.
I thank the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles who brought forward the motion, as well as the member for Hamilton Mountain. I know both as our EI critic and as our HRSDC critic, they have worked really hard on this file.
I have been listening to the debate all day and it is very interesting to hear the mantra, the message, the narrative, the talking points of the Conservatives who are saying that all the opposition does, the NDP and the Liberals, is oppose everything. I really want to set the record straight. This motion is an opportunity to deal with something that is very specific, and that is the working while on claim pilot project for EI. It is a very specific motion. The reason it is very specific is because we are trying to address something that is clearly not working. Therefore, for the Conservatives to come out with this blanket black and white statement that the opposition is opposed to everything, is simply not true. It is sort of the big lie technique, as I heard one of our members say earlier.
I remember a few budgets ago where the NDP successfully convinced the Conservative government to make changes to EI and to include additional funds. As a result, we voted for those measures. We look at legislation, budgets and motions before the House based on their merit. If the working while on claim pilot project were actually working for people, we would be supporting it.
The whole point of today's debate is this. We have been inundated in our offices across the country by real people who are on EI and who have a terrible time with this so-called pilot project that is meant to help them. Let us be very clear about this. This is not a motion just to oppose the government for the sake of opposing. This is a motion to demonstrate and focus the attention of the House on a project that is really important to hundreds of thousands of people and the fact that it is not working for them. We want it to work for them.
I will read the motion. It states:
That, in the opinion of the House, the new Working While on Claim pilot project is: (a) not benefiting the vast majority of EI recipients who are able to find employment; (b) creating a disincentive to take part-time work; and (c) leaving low income Canadians worse off than before; and that the House call on the government to take steps to fix Working While on Claim immediately.
The motion is very straightforward. It is looking for a pragmatic approach to say to the government that its claims that the project is helping just about everyone is not true.
I forgot, Mr. Speaker, to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Beaches—East York.
The motion is for us to draw attention to something that is very important.
We have heard the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development repeatedly claim, “the vast majority of EI recipients working while on claim will benefit from the new pilot project”. It has to be on the record. The facts are irrefutable that this is not the case. Many people are not only not benefiting, they are hurting and taking home less money now than they were under the previous program. There is something wrong with that picture.
Members of the House do not have to take my word for it. The Canada Employment Insurance Commission is an independent body that analyzes what goes on with EI. It submitted a report to the government on these changes in May, so it is a very recent report. It estimates that while 403,000 Canadians would benefit, 240,000 would be negatively affected.
If we do the math on this, we can see that it means that nearly four in ten EI recipients will be negatively affected by this pilot program. Any idea that this will help the vast majority of EI claimants is simply not true. It is really a cruel thing to keep saying that people are being helped when in actual fact they are not, certainly not the vast majority. This debate is focusing very much on the facts.
The parliamentary secretary, the member for Simcoe—Grey, claimed on September 24 “those who work more will be able to keep more when it comes to their employment insurance”. As we see from the report from the commission, and as we our constituents, this is simply not the case.
I hope members across the floor recognize that we are not just doing something to oppose for the sake of opposing. We are trying to be proactive and constructive by bringing forward a motion for correction.
My colleague from Hamilton Mountain earlier today gave a wonderful outline of why she knew it would be very unlikely that the motion would work. It is unfortunate and in a way sad and disappointing that the government is not willing to acknowledge the problems that exist with this program. It begs the question as to what really lies underneath these program changes.
Many members have made the point today that employers and workers contribute to the EI program. It is not a government program, but it is an important part of Canada's social safety network. Unemployed Canadians need to be able to rely on it when they are in difficulty. It begs the question as to why the government would do such a shoddy job in bringing forward a program that will not in any way live up to the goals and objectives that those members themselves have put forward. That is why we have the motion today.
Many of us could speak at length about the overall situation with EI just from our experience in dealing with constituents. It is really incredible to see how this program has taken a dive over the years. My colleague from Burnaby—Douglas pointed out earlier that some research done by CANSIM showed just how much the EI program had changed in the country. We know now that less than 40% of unemployed Canadians receive EI benefits. That number is higher for women and seasonal workers. Women are often in part-time work so they fair even less well than that general statistic. Surely this should raise concerns for us.
In the 1990s, 70% to 90% of Canadians who were unemployed were eligible for EI. The rules were relatively fair and they did the job that they were designed to do, and that was to help people through difficult periods of unemployment. We have seen a downward spiral, which started with a Liberal government that made reforms, but things became worse. Now we are at today's situation where even a so-called pilot project that is designed to help people keep a bit of money while working is hitting the people who are most vulnerable, the people who are making the lowest wages. That is patently unfair.
I hope the members of the Conservative government across the way will consider the motion on its merit. I would like to prove the member for Hamilton Mountain wrong. She gave a great speech earlier. I hope she might be wrong and the motion might go through. I hope the Conservative government will recognize that there is a genuine attempt here to show what needs to be done to the program. The motion calls on the government to make the changes so unemployed Canadians can receive the help they need.