House of Commons Hansard #153 of the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was support.

Topics

Arctic IceRequest for Emergency DebateRoutine Proceedings

3:35 p.m.

NDP

Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT

Deus impeditio esuritori nullus: no god can stop a hungry man. The Russian revolution, for example, began with riots over lack of food.

For these reasons, the House must immediately debate how Canada will deal with the increasing Arctic sea ice melt and the disastrous effect it is having on our weather systems, agriculture and economy.

Speaker's RulingRequest for Emergency DebateRoutine Proceedings

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Speaker Conservative Andrew Scheer

I appreciate the request from the hon. member. As I have mentioned, I do not think that this meets the test parameters for an emergency debate.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:40 p.m.

Haldimand—Norfolk Ontario

Conservative

Diane Finley ConservativeMinister of Human Resources and Skills Development

moved that Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House today in support of Bill C-44, Helping Families in Need Act.

The government is delivering on our commitment to support Canadian families by introducing new income supports for them in times of sickness and tragedy.

Our government listens to Canadian families. We know that raising a child is one of the most important responsibilities that someone will ever have, so when a parent has to struggle with illness while balancing other responsibilities, whether at work, home or both, the whole family is affected.

We have heard from families all across this great country about situations where a parent becomes ill soon after a child is born and while the parents are still receiving parental benefits. In those cases, parents have been unable to access EI sickness benefits during or after their receipt of parental benefits because of the way the Employment Insurance Act is written.

Our government is taking action and changing the rules for ill parents.

Bill C-44 will enable parents to receive employment insurance sickness benefits if they become ill while they are receiving parental benefits.

This new measure will benefit approximately 6,000 Canadians per year and will come into effect in early 2013. Additionally, as part of the bill, we are including changes for other income supports for families when they need these the most.

As the Prime Minister announced in April of this year, we will provide financial support to parents who are struggling with the disappearance or death of their child as a result of a crime. This measure will come into force in January 2013.

I would like to point out that Senator Boisvenu has worked tirelessly on moving forward with this issue.

I must pause here before proceeding. Everyone I have spoken with and heard from has applauded the introduction of these changes, acknowledging that our government will be providing families in the most tragic and difficult situations with up to 35 weeks of income support.

However, I was absolutely stunned last week when the NDP actually voted against helping these Canadian families. In the ways and means motion that was required to introduce these changes, NDP members turned their backs on parents who need our help. Our strong, stable, national, Conservative, majority government stood up for parents of murdered or missing children last week.

NDP members, as we know, never say no to spending. It seems that that is all they know how to do sometimes, along with providing massive tax increases. However, last week, without any sound rationale, they said no to parents who really need our support.

I am hoping that they have changed their minds since then. Perhaps they heard Bruno Serre's story. It is a tragic story about when he lost his daughter to crime. Perhaps they heard the story as he related it at the launch of the bill last week.

Bruno Serre is the vice-president of the Association of Families of Persons Assassinated or Disappeared and the father of Brigitte, who was murdered in January 2006, at the age of 17, while working a shift at a Shell gas station in Montreal. This is what he said:

I would like to thank...the Conservative government for keeping its promise, a promise that gives families like mine renewed confidence in our government's willingness to help them.

The third component of this legislation was also previously announced by our Prime Minister this summer, that we will offer employment insurance benefits to parents of critically ill or injured children.

Every year about 19,000 children get sick enough to require prolonged treatment in intensive care units.

To heal, seriously ill children not only need doctors day and night, but they also need the comfort that their parents can provide. This new benefit will help alleviate some of the financial hardships experienced by parents who have to miss work to spend time with their families.

They need the comfort of their parents. This benefit will help reduce some of the financial pressure that parents experience as they take time away from work to look after their family. Working parents in this situation have to use up their vacation and any other leave and allowances they may have. Then they will likely have to take unpaid leave from work, often with no clear idea of when or if they will be able to get back to work.

Our government has committed to helping and we are doing so with this legislation. Conservatives have been working hard for families for years and some of the work on this new EI benefit was actually started in 2008 by my colleague, the MP for Leeds—Grenville, who introduced a private member's bill on this topic. That bill and the subsequent discussions helped create the policy for parents of critically ill or injured children, and I thank my colleague from Leeds—Grenville for his efforts.

When announcing the tabling of this legislation last week, I was particularly touched by the story of Sharon Ruth, an advocate for parents of critically ill children. Sharon's daughter, Colleen, was six years old when she was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. Sharon's world was suddenly and completely changed. At the podium Sharon said:

[I]t wasn't until our country finally got a majority government that I'm standing here today with all of you on the brink of what I hope will be revolutionary change to help those families that are in need and most vulnerable.

The most important news is that Colleen is now cancer free and is enjoying life as a healthy and very active young woman. Sharon's worlds were clear on behalf of all of the parents who continue to struggle:

My hope is that this legislation passes quickly and without incident. I know all too well what it's like to suffer the emotional and financial devastation of a child with a cancer diagnosis. The sooner our government can bring relief to those thousands of families across Canada currently navigating this life-altering journey, juggling jobs, bills, treatment and hope the better.

To Sharon I say, I hope for that too.

Family, as well as the importance we attach to it, is one of the fundamental values that unite us as Canadians.

When times are tough, sometimes beyond what we could ever have imagined, that is when we support each other. That is what we do as Canadians and that is what we are doing as government. After all, the last thing that a parent should have to worry about at such a time is how to make a mortgage payment or how not to lose their job.

On that note, changes will also be made to the Canada Labour Code as part of Bill C-44 to provide job protection for parents under federal jurisdiction who take a leave of absence while coping with having a critically ill or injured child, or a murdered or missing child.

All of these measures will be providing assistance during some of the most trying or tragic times that a family could ever endure. They also represent our government's steadfast commitment to fulfilling our promises, listening to Canadians and making life better for hard-working families in this country.

As Dan Demers of the Canadian Cancer Society stated:

[I] think it's critically important that we acknowledge that in the last election, this government made a commitment to parents and families who are caring for children in the most difficult situations we can imagine and today, we're not only seeing the Government take action to fulfill this commitment, but they're moving in this town at lightening speed and...they're exceeding our expectations.

He also said:

These programs will strengthen Canadian families and provide them the flexibility and the security they need to help keep their lives as normal as possible through a very very difficult time.

I could not agree with him more, and I can only hope for all the parents who could benefit from these changes that the NDP will realize that this is not time for partisan games and needless dissent.

It is time to work together and help families in this country when they need it most.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the minister for keeping a straight face when she said that she thought we should debate this bill without partisan games and began her speech by launching into a fully partisan game.

Leaving that aside for the moment, I am happy to say that we will be supporting this bill on this side of the House. There are some significant measures that will help parents of critically ill children and children who were murdered or have gone missing, and we are proud to do that on this side of the House.

I have a question for the minister, though. I wonder if she could tell us why, in the Conservatives' 2011 election platform, they made a commitment that the support for parents of critically ill children would come out of the general revenue fund and not the EI fund, which is where they are now drawing the money from. It is an important distinction. Canadians deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent and what the integrity of the EI fund will look like in the future. I would like the minister to respond.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, I first want to sincerely thank my colleagues in the NDP for seeing the light and supporting this bill. This is good news and we welcome their support, as do, I am sure, Sharon and Bruno Serre and all of the families that are going to be affected by it.

We took a look at the best and fastest way to provide these supports to parents of critically ill or injured children and parents who need access to sickness benefits while on parental leave. EI was the most efficient and effective way to do this.

In terms of supporting parents of murdered and missing children, we found that we would be able to provide the service much more quickly, efficiently and effectively if we were to provide the service outside of the EI system. That is why we are proceeding this way so that we can support families as effectively, efficiently and quickly as possible.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intent of Bill C-44 and the Liberals will in fact be supporting it as well.

I cannot help but recognize the minister's change of heart because when Liberals made a similar policy announcement, her comment was that there were other options for people trying to care for their loved ones, including the fact that “Most employees do have vacation leave that they can use”. That was her comment last year.

It is strange that we are having this debate today and then having a technical briefing tonight, but at least there is going to be a briefing and this bill will go to committee. This impacts maybe 6,000 Canadians, but the changes to the EI working while on claim provision impacts about 850,000, and those changes never went to committee.

This is a better way to do it, to shed light on it and find out about any unintended consequences. Does the minister not think that if we had also done this with the changes made to the working while on claim provision, we would not have the sort of mess we now have with low-income earners?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, today we are here to discuss Bill C-44. During question period I addressed the hon. member's issues with employment insurance. In terms of employment insurance, what is relevant right now is Liberal support for Bill C-44, which will be using the employment insurance fund to help parents who become ill while on parental leave and support parents dealing with critically ill or injured children.

I have to say that I am delighted with and welcome the support of the Liberals on this bill. I thank them very much.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Mississauga—Erindale Ontario

Conservative

Bob Dechert ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the minister on her speech and for bringing forward this important piece of legislation. As a member of Parliament from Mississauga, I have heard from many parents who have critically ill children who have been requesting this kind of support.

I am glad to see that the NDP and the Liberals have decided to support the bill. I have to say the NDP caused us a bit of concern earlier when its members voted against a ways and means motion, but I am glad to see they have made the right decision to support this bill.

Would the minister comment on what she has heard from parents of critically ill children about the need for this bill?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, last week after we tabled the bill in the House, we had a launch for the bill. It was one of the most moving events that I have been to in a very long time. There were parents who have been through these tragedies with their children, such as Sharon Ruth, whose daughter was suddenly diagnosed with cancer at age six. Some of my colleagues in this House have been through similar circumstances. Senator Boisvenu, the founding president of the murdered or missing persons' families association, was there and is very appreciative. All of them recognize that families need support. They gave us full credit for recognizing that need and being able to deliver on these supports to help them out. It really was a love-in and it was a privilege for me to be there with these folks.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, there is one part of the bill that puzzles me and I truly am looking for clarification. I look forward to the minister's briefing on the bill, which we obviously did not have the privilege of having before we had to debate the bill.

There is one part in the bill that deals with missing children. I certainly understand and support the intent of the bill as far as it goes, but I wonder if the minister would explain why it only deals with children who have gone missing as a result of a suspected breach of the Criminal Code, as opposed to children who have gone missing? All of their parents, I assume, would be equally worried. It would be a traumatic experience to know that one's child is missing, and yet the minister puts a caveat on that part of the bill.

I am sincerely looking to the minister to explain why that limit would be put on that provision of the bill.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that whenever a child is missing, it is a terrible thing for the parents to deal with.

We had a lot of consultations before bringing in the bill. It was determined, based upon the advice that we received from the law enforcement community, from the legal community, even from parents who have been through this, that when a child is missing due to a suspected criminal act, there are a lot of other circumstances that come into play that require attention, things like dealing with the police, dealing with the legal system, potentially dealing with ransom demands. While they are all terrible circumstances, it was recommended that we include a limitation, and that is why we have done that.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, the number of Canadians who will be impacted is fairly modest, some 6,000. Would the minister share with us what the cost of the program would be with 6,000 people?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

Diane Finley Conservative Haldimand—Norfolk, ON

Mr. Speaker, for the portion of the program that is for parents of critically ill of injured children, this would have a positive impact on some 6,000 families, at an estimated cost of $60 million per year, which would be funded through the employment insurance account.

We believe that is a reasonable price. We have taken a look at it. We believe that is the level of support that would help these families in their hour of need.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

Before resuming debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for St. Paul's, Aboriginal Affairs; the hon. member for Winnipeg North, Immigration.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-44, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act and to make consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations.

Bill C-44 would provide a series of improvements, most of them through the employment insurance program, to Canadian families who desperately need the support of their government. For that reason, we are pleased to support this bill.

In fact, some of the provisions of the bill were lifted straight out of my private member's Bill C-362, and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I will consider myself flattered. Let me review which parts of Bill C-44 were lifted from my bill.

First, one of the proposals included in the government's bill would amend the EI Act to allow mothers and fathers currently on parental leave to access EI sickness benefits if they fall ill during their parental leave. This is a welcome and long overdue amendment. There are few Canadians who would disagree that new parents, who very often are already stretched both physically and financially, should not be penalized if they become ill while on parental leave.

I am a little puzzled though as to why the minister would have stopped short of extending this benefit further. If she appreciates the injustice of denying sickness benefits to those whose circumstances change while on parental leave, then why did she fail to apply the same consideration and logic to workers who are laid off while on parental leave? Why would she solve one injustice and at the same time wilfully ignore the other?

My bill does take that extra step. It would fix that wrong. It points out that those on parental leave, the very same physically and emotionally drained new parents who sometimes become ill while on parental leave, can through no fault of their own find that they have been downsized or laid off while on parental leave. As it currently stands, parents in that situation are denied benefits and, inexplicably, the government is content to leave them twisting in the wind, unsupported by even the meagre support provided by EI.

On the upside, my private member's bill also includes provisions to cover the self-employed in this benefits arrangement, and I am pleased to see that the government has at least adopted that.

Let me move on to special benefits that Bill C-44 would provide for parents caring for a child with a critical illness or injury.

While support for these parents is important and, frankly, long overdue, I am concerned that parents are only eligible if they have worked a minimum of 600 insurable hours over the past year. More than anything, this raises the question for me of whether the EI program is the best vehicle for delivering this parental support.

I would point out that at one time the government agreed with me. As recently as 2011 the Conservative Party platform read, “Funding for this measure will come from general revenue, not EI premiums”. The Conservatives were right to adopt that approach.

Whether one is a waged worker, a senior manager, a professional, or a stay-at-home parent, the devastation of a critically ill child is the same. All Canadians who find themselves caring for their seriously ill child are incurring a myriad of expenses that go beyond lost wages, and they all deserve our support.

What happened to make the government change its mind? The grant for parents of murdered and missing children will be paid from general revenues and not through EI, but with respect to critically ill children, the Conservatives have ignored their election promise and are paying for their commitment through EI.

I do not need to remind anyone in the House that the EI fund is not the government's money. It is a fund to which only workers and employers contribute, so for the government to draw on that pool of money to create a photo op on a policy announcement no matter how positive is surely beyond the pale.

As tempting as it is for me to go on about that theme at greater length, let me leave the Conservatives' partisan antics aside and return to the policy itself.

Mercifully, I have never experienced the anguish of parents whose child is diagnosed with a serious illness. I can scarcely imagine how difficult and frightening it must be. It is precisely at life-altering moments like those that we all need not just our friends and families, but our communities and our government as well. At the very least, government must ensure that their burden is not increased by adding financial worries to the heap. Surely that is one of the principal ways in which government directly serves the needs of the community, of people, of taxpayers.

I am pleased that the government has finally moved to provide a basic level of financial assistance for those Canadians. It is not enough of course. Families going through serious illness incur enormous expenses, and EI benefits are a maximum of 55% of income, but it is a start.

Having said that though, a few other questions must also be addressed.

The government says that it intends to make these benefits available to the parents of children who are “critically ill or injured”. I am deeply concerned about how the government intends to define “critically ill or injured”.

As it stands now, compassionate care benefits have been available to parents of a child who faced “a significant risk of death within 26 weeks”. That incredibly cold and narrow definition of serious illness will certainly keep program costs down, but it fails a huge number of the very same Canadian families the government says it wants to help.

Serious illness just does not work that way. Health care does not work that way. Families do not work that way. The Canadian Cancer Society points out that parents of critically ill children have been reluctant to submit claims for financial support because they did not wish to acknowledge that their child had a significant risk of dying.

Of course, through the advance of research, survival rates are, thankfully, increasing. For example, over the last 30 years, childhood cancer survival rates have improved substantially. They have gone up from 71% in the late 1980s to 82% in the early 2000s, and the five-year survival rates have increased for several types of childhood cancers.

Obviously, I am not a health care professional, but I cannot imagine that the government's insistence on a formal declaration of near imminent death is medically wise, never mind emotionally tolerable. Rarely are parents or doctors comfortable being so categorical about a child's prognosis, and to put parents in the position of requesting such a declaration so they can access desperately needed financial assistance is, to me, unconscionable.

In reality, many childhood illnesses that were considered terminal even five years ago are no longer so. Childhood cancers are notorious for peaks and valleys, remissions and recurrence, and increasingly, cure. The current black and white definition of critical illness means the parents of the child that faces a difficult and uncertain course of chemo or an organ transplant, but whose child has a reasonable chance of survival cannot currently access this benefit. Surely the minister appreciates that those parents need support too.

It is a situation that the minister must ensure is remedied in the regulations attending this bill. The definition of “critically ill or injured” must not be conflated with “significant risk of death within 26 weeks”.

Let us move on to some of the other provisions in the legislation before us.

Bill C-44 provides for changes to the Income Tax Act that will facilitate a direct grant to the parents of missing or murdered children in Canada. Importantly, there is a caveat. The missing child must be missing on account of a suspected breach of the Criminal Code.

A couple of concerns come to mind immediately. First, while this grant is unique in the legislation insofar as it is not part of the employment insurance system, it is nonetheless tied to the income of the parent. In order to apply for the benefit, a parent must have earned a minimum of $6,500 in the last calendar year. I wonder what the government has in mind with respect to stay-at-home parents, for example, whose child is missing as a result of a suspected breach of the Criminal Code. That parent, who may have other children to care for, who may be a caregiver for an elderly parent, who undoubtedly has responsibilities in his or her own home and community, has no access to this benefit.

Why has the government tied this grant to income? Surely all parents of children missing in a suspected criminal case need and deserve the financial support that permits them to focus on the crisis in their family.

Second, and I spoke to this in response to the minister's speech just a few minutes ago, I am still not sure I understand the rationale behind providing support only for parents whose children are missing “as a result of a suspected breach of the Criminal Code”. If I am understanding this right, if a family were to go wilderness camping, say, and their toddler wandered away from the campsite and ended up missing, the parents would not be eligible for any support during their time of frantically searching for their child. Why is that? Why is that awful situation any less worthy of support? Did the government's need to feed the rhetoric of its law and order agenda take precedence over good public policy here? I am simply not understanding why the Criminal Code caveat was deemed necessary to add in this bill.

That takes me to the larger context of the bill. I have acknowledged that the legislation before us today provides a small but important improvement for new parents who get sick while on parental leave. I welcome the additional support for parents of critically ill or injured children and those whose children are missing or murdered. Those are indeed positive changes, and I am pleased to see that the government is taking steps, tentative though they are, toward developing an understanding of working Canadian families and the struggles that they face.

What the legislation does not do speaks volumes about the government's view of the appropriate use of the EI fund. At a time when at least 1.4 million Canadians are out of work, the government crafts EI legislation that provides a benefit only for people who are not, in fact, unemployed. How ironic is that?

While the official number says unemployment sits at about 7.3%, we all know that the number is much closer to 14%. The government knows that as a result of its policies, hundreds of thousands of Canadians are not included in that number. Those no longer looking for work or who are employed in part-time, temporary or casual employment are not counted in the official figures.

The real unemployment rate is a frightening indictment of the government's failed economic policies. The fact is that 300,000 more Canadians are unemployed today than during the recession. This is a government with no industrial strategy and a government that is overseeing the decimation of the manufacturing sector.

The fact is that Statistics Canada pointed out last spring that there were almost six unemployed workers for every reported job vacancy in Canada. The fact is that the government's failed economic policies have devastated workers and families across the country. Its economic action plan is comprised of little action and lots of advertising.

To add insult to injury, while Canadians continue to suffer the consequences of the Conservatives' discredited and ineffective trickle-down policies, the government has moved to restrict and undermine the very social safety net that was designed to help families weather such economic downturns.

Less than half of unemployed Canadians now qualify for EI benefits. Fully 60% of unemployed men and 68% of unemployed women get no support whatsoever from EI and 870,000 Canadians have no access to EI benefits, despite the fact, again, that employment insurance is a program entirely paid for by workers and employers, a program funded without a nickel from the government's treasury. That is an historic low.

No doubt the government is proud of successfully shutting more than half of unemployed Canadians out of the insurance system for which their own hard-earned wages have paid. It hurts workers, small businesses and communities, but it helps build that EI surplus, which successive Liberal and Conservative governments have raided to the tune of $54 billion to pay down their debts and to finance more corporate tax cuts.

The government has no understanding of the devastation that job loss can bring to a family. There are 1.4 million Canadians officially out of work. Those families are on the knife-edge of poverty. They are losing their homes and savings. Their kids cannot join sports teams or travel with the school band or, far too often, start the school day with a decent breakfast.

However, the Prime Minister betrayed his lack of compassion and understanding for unemployed Canadians when he told the American Council for National Policy, in 1997:

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

Who knew that when Mitt Romney accused 47% of Americans of being work-shy layabouts, that he stole the line from the Prime Minister? Not to be outdone, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said, “We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it”.

With that kind of cabinet leadership, it is no wonder that the prevailing attitude of Conservative backbenchers toward the unemployed is, in the now infamous words of the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's, they are “no-good bastards'”. What a way to blame the victims for the government's failed economic policies.

The Conservatives say that they are focused like a laser on jobs, but clearly their focus is on job cuts not job creation.

The stark reality is that unemployment in Canada is unacceptably high and access to employment insurance benefits is at a record low. When one of the 40% does manage to jump through the myriad of hoops designed to disqualify people from benefits, they can only get benefits that max out at $485 per week and are available to them for shorter and shorter periods.

I will remind members again that all of that must be seen in the context of one overriding truth, and that is the employment insurance system is 100% funded by employees and employers. Indeed, the Conservative fondness for Tea Party politics is evident again.

EI begins to look more and more like U.S.-style private health care coverage. Sure, companies offer insurance, provided people are young, healthy, have no pre-existing condition and are statistically unlikely to ever claim a nickel from them. So it goes with Canada's EI.

Sure, we have employment insurance. Individuals and their employers will have to fully finance it with significant premiums, of course. However, goodness, if they ever actually want to use the safety net they paid for, the government will throw up as many roadblocks as it possibly can. They have to wait two weeks without any money, even after filing their claim, and they cannot get benefits if they have not worked immediately prior to their claim, even if they have paid into the fund for many years. If they somehow manage to clear those hurdles and they do get benefits, it is only 55% of their wages. Retraining for a transitional economy, new skills? Oh dear, no, the government does not do that.

Where is the comprehensive study of the employment insurance program? Where is the strategic analysis and the comprehensive reform the system so clearly needs? Where is the jobs strategy, the skills training, the second career program, the forward-looking, aggressive and progressive programs to get Canadians' skill sets renewed and retooled and to get Canadians back to work? Where is the vision? Where is the leadership? In fact, there is none in the bill, not from the government.

We have before us a bill that provides important support to, by the government's own admission, perhaps 6,000 Canadians. However, we are puzzled. None of those 6,000 Canadians are actually unemployed. Do they need and deserve government support? Absolutely. Can I remind the minister of the very first line of the Service Canada website, which stipulates, “Employment insurance provides temporary financial assistance to unemployed Canadians who have lost their job through no fault of their own while they look for work or upgrade their skills”.

The bill before us today would do absolutely nothing to support that mission statement. It would provide financial assistance to not a single, unemployed Canadian. It fails completely to address the urgent needs of the at least 1.4 million Canadians without work, without a paycheque and, increasingly, without hope.

On this file, the only leadership is coming from this side of the House of Commons under the leadership of the member for Outremont, the leader of the official opposition. We are the only party that offers policies to extend access to EI benefits, not to limit it further.

When will the government listen to Canadians, as we have done, and undertake a strategic review of the entire program, with a view to: extending EI stimulus measures until unemployment falls to pre-recession levels; eliminating the two week waiting period; returning the qualifying period to a minimum of 360 hours of work, regardless of the regional rate of unemployment; raising the rate of benefits to 60%; and improving the quality and monitoring of training and retraining?

That is the kind of support unemployed Canadians, and the Canadian economy, needs from the government.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

NDP

Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's comments with some interest. I want to note that the bill does not actually fix one of the most egregious problems of the EI system, and that is its discrimination toward women.

Women are the only sex that I am aware that can have babies. As a result, women are the only sex that can take maternity leave, and in large measure, of the maternity and parental leave, most of them are taken by women.

I am aware of at least six in one of the workplaces I dealt with where women had taken maternity leave and did not have time to accumulate enough hours before their permanent layoff from their employer. As a result, those women, in my view, were being discriminated against. It was only women who took maternity leave and therefore those women were not eligible for regular benefit when they were subsequently laid off from the employer. They were back at work for a month or a month and a half, so they did get a few hours in, but they were not able to collect regular benefits.

Would the member like to comment on the lack of government response to this issue?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member points to one of the most serious flaws with our current EI system.

As I mentioned in part of my speech, I introduced Bill C-362, which we have called “EI for moms”. The member is quite right, we cannot currently stack EI benefits. If individuals are on maternity leave and their company closes down, they are no longer eligible for EI as their colleagues would have been.

It is not just true for maternity leave and regular benefits, it is also true for sick benefits, for all special benefits: none of them can be stacked. It is one of the most serious flaws in the EI program. I am really appreciative that my colleague pointed out the particularly discriminatory impact of those policies on women in our country.

We had incredible support for Bill C-362. As I said earlier in my speech, the minister has poached some parts of that bill and incorporated it into Bill C-44. I would strongly encourage her to also adopt the rest of the bill.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB

Mr. Speaker, the member went on about all of the deficiencies that she sees in EI, but did not really talk to the real crux of the issue, which is Bill C-44 and the great work it would do toward supporting families.

I have first hand experience with this. Neighbours of mine had a child who was ill from getting cancer treatments for seven years. The family could not find any support in the system at that time. They pleaded with me, as their member of Parliament and as their neighbour and friend, to find a way to get solutions to help support families that were dealing with children who were critically ill and often terminal so they would not have to worry about the financial flows from day to day.

I want to ensure that the member will support the bill because it takes the right approach to support families that deal with so many circumstances if their children are ill, injured or fall victim to violent crimes.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure how to respond to my colleague. I know you were listening to my speech intently and will know that the first half of my speech dealt specifically with the impact of Bill C-44 on parents of critically ill, missing or murdered children. I am sorry the member missed that part of my speech. I said at the outset, as well, that we would support the bill.

At this point I am looking for some direction from the Chair. Should I ask for unanimous consent to redo the first half of my speech so the hon. member can have the benefit of that?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent of the House?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and the view shared by my colleague. As she indicated from the outset, the NDP will be supporting the bill at this time.

As the minister indicated in her comments, and as has been brought up by the Conservative members, the NDP did not support the ways and means motion on that. Obviously, there was something in the bill at that time that was of concern.

Perhaps my colleague could share with the House what the concerns were around the bill initially, because it has a tremendous impact for those who will be impacted by it. Therefore, could she share some of the concerns around the ways and means motion and why her party did not support it at the time?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question. The member is quite right that this bill will have a significantly positive impact on those 6,000 estimated Canadians who will be impacted by the changes under Bill C-44.

With respect to the financing of the bill, I think I was clear in my speech on the matter. In their 2011 platform, the Conservatives promised that the financing of the bill would come from general revenues. Instead we see in the bill that the money will now come out of the EI fund. The EI fund is not the government's money. It is easy for the government to offer new programs when it does not have to pay for them.

The way Bill C-44 is written now, the support for parents of critically ill children would come out of a program that was initially designed to help unemployed Canadians. That mission has been completely lost in the bill. Therefore, we are concerned about how the government is proceeding with financing the new initiatives in Bill C-44.

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Pierre Nantel NDP Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for her tenacity and dedication to the issues that she cares deeply about and has been working on for many years.

I would also like to commend her good grace in noting that there is parliamentary work to be done and suggesting that we support this bill so that the committee can discuss it further. She is a shining example of how we should operate: acknowledging good work when we see it and refining it in committee.

We all know that the members opposite see the employment insurance fund as a treasure chest to be plundered at will. Does my colleague believe that the Conservatives' decision to use the EI fund to provide support for families with gravely ill children suggests they would like to clean the fund out completely?

Helping Families in Need ActGovernment Orders

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely believe that it is our role as parliamentarians here to protect the integrity of the EI fund. Those people who were watching not just the debate this afternoon but who perhaps tuned in a little earlier during question period will have seen us take on the Conservative government about the way it has treated two pilot programs with respect to EI. One is to stop all help for seasonal workers. The other is to make it more difficult for people on EI to make a bit of extra money while they are on claim. That was the working while on claim pilot project. We have been going hard after those issues, because they impact literally thousands of Canadians.

The member is quite right in saying that it is up to us to hold the government to account for those changes and that it is up to us to maintain the integrity of the system. That is why we exposed the fact that both successive Liberal and Conservative governments have stolen $54 billion out of the EI fund to pay for corporate tax cuts, to pay for debt reduction. It was not their money. That money was there to help unemployed Canadians.

Members can imagine the program expansion that could have been funded with $54 billion. Instead, it went to corporate tax cuts. What did we learn from Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada? We learned that businesses are not even investing that money to create jobs. They are hoarding that money, and he called it “dead money”.

That is why we need a strong official opposition like the one we have under the member for Outremont to challenge the government on its handling of this very important EI system.