Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-44. This is a bill that we support at second reading because obviously this is an issue of helping families. It is not a question of ideology or partisan politics; it is about helping families in their time of need.
As members well know, Bill C-44 would amend the Canada Labour Code, the Employment Insurance Act, the Income Tax Act and the income tax regulations to allow workers to take leave and draw EI in the event of their child's serious illness, disappearance or death due to crime. These are all very serious and challenging circumstances which unfortunately too many Canadian families are dealing with.
It goes without saying that we agree with supporting families in their time of exceptional need and at a time when there is suffering and trauma going on in a family. However, I do want to remind the House that during the 2011 election campaign the Conservatives campaigned on a promise to fund this measure from general revenue and not the EI fund.
We note that the grant for the parents of murdered and missing children would be paid from general revenue. That is what is being proposed here. However, it appears that the Conservatives have ignored their own campaign promise, in that the benefits to be paid to the parents of critically ill children will not be paid through general revenue but will be paid through EI.
This is by far the more costly of the benefits because of the number of people involved. This is at a time when the cumulative deficit for the EI fund is at $9 billion. This is at a time when we have a sluggish economy, persistent exceptionally high unemployment in Canada, and sadly at a time when the government has been attacking and rolling back the benefits to which Canadian families can have access. That is extremely problematic.
The Conservatives are making this proposal at a time when more than half of Canadians who are unemployed cannot access EI benefits. That is simply unacceptable. New Democrats will continue to fight for an EI system that is fair, accessible and available to Canadians right across this country in their time of need.
I do remember some years back when the Conservatives also agreed with that. At one point in time they had called unemployment insurance, as it was called at that time, the best adjustment program that we have in this country. It is an adjustment program that is necessary during periods of downturn in the economy, but also during periods of great economic change in our society.
New Democrats have spoken many times in this House about the deindustrialization that is taking place under the watch of the current government and the previous government. We have seen hundreds of thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs leave this country. Far too many people ultimately do not get access to EI benefits. They end up in jobs that are very low paying, contract or temporary positions, and face a dramatic decline in their standard of living.
The EI system was designed to help working people during these periods of adjustment in a changing economy. What has been so grossly unfair is that the current government and the previous Liberal government plundered tens of billions of dollars out of the EI fund to balance the books. The money in the EI fund was paid by workers and employers across the country and ought to have been available to people in their time of need when they faced unemployment.
Today we are left with this legacy of more than half of unemployed workers not being able to access benefits. We have a deficit in the fund, and benefits have been reduced. I want to make the point that further tapping into this fund for a new benefit, which is in complete contradiction to the Conservatives' campaign pledge, is simply not acceptable. Of course we do support the principle of helping Canadian families in their time of need.
There are many tragic stories of Canadian families that have been affected by the critical illness of a child or children who have been victims of very serious crimes, including murder.
Recently I spoke with a constituent in my riding of Parkdale—High Park in Toronto, a mother who is a strong community activist. She lives in Toronto community housing, so it is a family of limited means. This woman is a single parent and her only child, her son, was walking in broad daylight on a Saturday afternoon and was the victim of a drive-by shooting. Fortunately for all concerned, this 15-year-old man survived, but the bullet went through his abdomen. He was severely injured. He remains at home. He has been completely traumatized by this incident. He will have a permanent disability as a result of his injuries. This is through no fault of his own. By all accounts from people in the community, he is a good kid who does well in school and helps out in the neighbourhood, but he was the victim of a random crime in his neighbourhood.
It is frightening. I am a parent of three sons, and I imagine that could happen to children anywhere in this country. The woman said that because her son has been so traumatized, he has not been able to return to school. They are being forced to move not only out of the Toronto community housing building, but they are looking to move out of Toronto because her son has been so traumatized. He does not want to go out of their apartment. He is afraid to go to the window because he fears for his life.
This is one example. We get a sense of what some families are dealing with because, through no fault of their own, they have been victims of crime. We support the goal of assisting families in their time of need, whether it is a child who has been a victim of crime or whether it is a child who is critically ill. This means parents have to take time off work. In some cases they have to travel some distance to deal with the crisis they are facing.
We have difficulty with imposing more costs on the EI system at a time when this fund is already stressed, at a time when more than half of unemployed workers cannot claim the benefits for which they have paid and to which they ought to be entitled.
I hope that we can have a good debate about the best way to implement this goal of helping Canadian families. I hope the government will take the opportunity to consider constructive proposals to make the bill better so that it serves the needs of families in crisis, but also does not negatively impact the far too many Canadian workers, more than one million, who are unemployed.