Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that I certainly support the motion. The motion relates to inequality and so I will speak mainly on the new EI clawback rules that came into effect on August 5. As the leader of the Liberal Party, the member for Toronto Centre, said in his remarks, the government has taken steps that have in fact accelerated inequality. He outlined a number of areas.
I want to talk specifically about the EI changes and how they have really accelerated inequality. My colleague from Newfoundland and Labrador just talked about her riding. She said the wealthy are getting wealthier and the poor, poorer and that the gap is growing. Nothing shows it more starkly than these changes to the employment insurance system.
If a person is making over $300 per week, then they are a little better off, but if they are making less than $300 a week, they are very much worse off.
In my neck of the woods people are in the seasonal industries. We have tourism, fisheries and agriculture, all of them seasonal industries. A farmer may need someone for a day, so the person will only get a day's work, or in the fisheries doing mussels it may be for half a day or a day. A person on employment insurance is lucky if he or she can get more than a day, a day and a half or sometimes two days a week extra employment, because in all honesty, the jobs are just not there, but we need those people in the seasonal industry.
On these very provisions the government introduced, I question whether the minister understands her files according to the answers she has been giving on this issue. However, knowingly or unknowingly, the government has introduced a system that is good for those who are making fairly decent money and are able to get the additional work, but is terrible for those who do not have the work time in their own areas. That is not the way the system should be going. It could be done with balance.
The original system allowed 40% of eligible EI earnings to be kept while working on claim without any clawbacks. If the government had introduced legislation with the 50% clawback starting after the 40% level, then the system would have worked for everyone and it would not have increased inequality.
I want to give the House a couple of examples that are coming our way. Constituent one is a nurse from my riding. She is on parental leave. She lives 45 minutes away from the hospital. The hospital only needs her for one four-hour shift. Another nurse I know works an eight-hour shift, but they only need her for one hour.
The nurse has to hire a babysitter, put gas in the car and drive 45 minutes each way. She is only getting four hours work, but the benefit of that is that it helps the hospital with its scheduling and maintains the nurse's skills. She is in the hospital once a week, seeing patients, seeing any new computer changes and keeping up on all the things she has to do as a registered nurse working in the health care system. Therefore, it keeps her in the field and her skills sharp, which is a real benefit to the health care system.
However, the government, in its lack of wisdom through this change, is now clawing back half of those wages. She is only getting paid 50¢ on the dollar because of this change. That is hurting both the health care system and the nurse as an employee, because she no longer has benefits from going to work. In fact, she said she could not afford it and told the hospital she could no longer work that shift because it was costing her financially. That is a loss to the health care system, and there are hospitals with several such employees. That is the impact of these changes.
A second constituent had this to say in her letter:
I do taxes for a living so our season is 3-4 months in the Spring. When the information was sent earlier in the year about the 50% clawback, I misunderstood the depth of the changes. I assumed (because it wasn't stated clearly) that those on E.I. would still be allowed to earn 40% without it affecting their E.I., and everything they earned while working would, instead of coming off dollar for dollar, come off 50% on the dollar.
However, this is so not true to my dismay 2 weeks ago. There is no allowable earnings? What's to entice people to work while on E.I.? The thought of making half of their wages? We now have to weigh the option of whether to work or whether to stay home because nobody wants to work for free.
There are really four things happening here as a result of the minister's changes. First, the great majority of people in Atlantic Canada are earning far less while working on claim than they were under the old system. Let us keep in mind that these people see it very vividly.
If they were on employment insurance prior to August 5, whether it was parental leave, regular EI, fisheries EI or compassionate care, and they were working while on claim, then they would get their check following August 5. Their total net disposal income, what they get on EI plus what they earned while working on claim with the new clawback, very vividly shows that they are getting less. They can see it because they were in the system before and they can see the return now.
There are four impacts. First, the majority of employees in Atlantic Canada have far less disposable income under this system. Second, employers are affected in that if they want a person for a day or a day and a half a week, they are not going to be able to get them because people cannot afford to work when half of their wages, 50¢ on the dollar, are being clawed back by the Conservative government.
Third, the economy is impacted, because there will be a loss of productivity. Employers will not be able to find employees for short-term work. A potato farmer who has truckloads of potatoes to grade but is only going to have work for half a day a week, where is he going to get employees?
Fourth, and dangerously, it will create an underground economy. People will say, “Look, I know you need workers and I know I cannot afford to work and claim it, so can you pay me cash?”
That is the reality of the system, those four serious points.
Out of concern, I took a number of cases from Atlantic Canada and asked the Library of Parliament to do an analysis of the old system and the new system. They produced a document entitled, “Case studies for the new pilot project, working while on claim”.
Mr. Speaker, because it has been mentioned here in the talking points of the government, you will know that the minister did provide an example, which she put in her letter. However, these are real case studies based on real lives. They tell a story. In all of these cases, people are getting less now than they were under the old system. That is increasing the inequity within our country.
At the very beginning of this document, it explains the system and how it works. It is very clear from a question by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister that was addressed to the member for Cape Breton—Canso that he does not understand the system.
In conclusion, as the government does not understand the system and as this document is from the Library of Parliament, which does good work, I wonder if I could have unanimous consent to table this report so that government members could see actual cases and the explanation of how the system really works or does not work.