Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians have been trying for over a year now to talk some common sense into the Conservatives by using every means possible to explain how bad the employment insurance reform is for our country.

Unfortunately, the arrogance of the Conservatives knows no bounds and they do not want to budge an inch, even though the facts are staring them in the face. We are at the point where we cannot help but wonder whether this party makes and stands by bad decisions because it is incompetent or because it refuses to own up to its mistakes.

Just a few weeks ago, the papers were reporting that the budget-cutting quotas given to Service Canada inspectors were required by the department. I talked to the minister to find out why she was requiring $430 million in EI benefits to be cut for the current fiscal year.

I also asked her why she was demanding cuts that were more than double the overpayments made in 2009, in other words $200 million. Unfortunately, her response was far from adequate.

First, she said that the employment insurance program is there for people who are entitled to benefits. Yet, I need not remind members that the program is becoming less and less accessible as a result of the Conservatives' measures. As a result of the restrictions imposed, less than 50% of workers are entitled to receive EI benefits during hard times, even though all workers contribute to the program.

One has to wonder whether the Conservatives plan to restrict access to benefits to less than 10% of the population, fill the EI coffers and then make off with a bundle of cash that came exclusively from the pockets of workers and employers, as did the two previous Liberal and Conservative governments.

In her response, the minister also said that there were cheaters in the system and that Service Canada managed to stop half a billion dollars in ineligible payments.

Of course, I agree that any cheaters must be caught. However, it is completely unacceptable to use the word fraud and the amount of $500 million in the same sentence. The Conservatives are pros at using this tactic rather than governing competently and with integrity, and unfortunately, they are once again using it to denigrate workers and scare Canadians into falsely thinking that their money is being wasted. This is nothing but demagoguery.

Employment insurance is not being defrauded of $500 million per year. The truth is that there are overpayments of benefits and errors on the part of employers, employees and claimants. Those errors can arise because of misunderstandings, poor communication, different takes on events, computer glitches or administrative problems.

Getting back to my question: why is the minister forcing Service Canada investigators to retrieve a minimum amount of money every month if not to save money by clawing it back from honest workers who have lost their jobs and contributed to the plan?

We have a federal deficit, and this government has no idea how to get public finances back on track. That is why it is targeting honest workers and people.

Simply put, the government is making political hay at Canadian workers' expense to cover up its own mismanagement.

Can the minister provide a clear explanation of why she has imposed these quotas?

Employment InsuranceAdjournment Proceedings

7 p.m.

Simcoe—Grey Ontario

Conservative

Kellie Leitch ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour

Mr. Speaker, the employment insurance program exists to support eligible Canadians who cannot find work. Service Canada has a responsibility to find and stop inappropriate claims so that Canadians who have paid into the system can access these benefits when they need them. That is why we have an integrity function built into the system.

Service Canada's integrity services branch is responsible for investigating client error, fraud and abuse. It ensures clients receive the right benefits at the right time and for the right purpose. We have mechanisms to detect overpayments and stop any further incorrect payments.

In short, when we uncover errors or fraud, we put a stop to it. That means less money going out for the wrong reasons.

Although there are performance objectives to help protect the benefits of the unemployed from fraud, quotas simply do not exist. These measures should not be misconstrued as savings quotas. If these performance targets are not met, there are no negative consequences for employees.

Last year, nearly half a billion dollars in ineligible payments were detected and stopped by Service Canada across all programs. This is in large number and it illustrates just how important it is that we act on behalf of Canadians to ensure the accuracy of payments. As large as this number is, we know that the EI program still lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to overpayments and fraud that were not recovered.

These integrity mechanisms help us to ensure that we are providing a sustainable system that will continue to be available to Canadians and dependable for those who are eligible. These integrity measures are not tied to any specific region of the country. Service Canada officials have been clear that they do not have quotas which would carry negative consequences for staff who fail to meet them.

Since 1993, officials have used targets to find and stop inappropriate claims so Canadians who have paid into the system can access these benefits when they need them.

Front line Service Canada employees and managers do not receive bonuses for meeting performance objectives.

We hear constantly from the opposition members that they do not want any increase in EI premiums. If we do not stop and recover inappropriate claims, it would be Canadian employees and employers who bear the costs.

Employment InsuranceAdjournment Proceedings

7:05 p.m.

NDP

Anne-Marie Day NDP Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are sick and tired of hearing the same old tune.

The minster said that quotas do not exist. Yet we know full well that Service Canada employees have performance targets. We also know that these employees will be meeting with their managers at the beginning of May to find out what those targets are. The targets are cuts of $485,000 per employee.

I am sure that Canadians would like to know how the minister knows in advance that she will have $485 million in ineligible payments—as she so often likes to remind us—if it is not because investigators will be required to do everything in their power, unthinkable things, in order to cut unemployed workers' benefits.

Canadians do not want to be treated like criminals and nobodies. They want to be treated with dignity when they lose their jobs. Employment insurance belongs to the workers, and they should be able to have access to it when they need it.

Will the minister listen to workers and ease up on this reform, and will she get rid of these infamous quotas that she still refuses to call quotas?

Employment InsuranceAdjournment Proceedings

7:05 p.m.

Conservative

Kellie Leitch Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON

Mr. Speaker, the accusations that our employees have to meet reduction quotas are false. I cannot be any clearer.

The purpose of EI is to support those who have lost their job through no fault of their own. Service Canada has a responsibility to find and stop inappropriate claims so Canadians who have paid into the system can access these benefits when they need them. Last year, nearly half a billion dollars in ineligible payments were detected and stopped by Service Canada.

Since 1993, officials have used targets to find and stop inappropriate claims so that Canadians who have paid into the system can access these benefits when they need them.

Food SafetyAdjournment Proceedings

April 29th, 2013 / 7:05 p.m.

NDP

Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take this opportunity to revisit my question about the barriers to nutritionally adequate food faced by northern and aboriginal peoples across Canada.

As I have said before, the government must consider a national food strategy to combat the growing issue of food insecurity. At the time of my question, the UN rapporteur on the right to food finished his visit to Canada and expressed concern that we were not meeting our obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which we signed in 2010, by the way. He has since delivered his report to the UN Human Rights Council with a similar message.

The inaccessibility of nutritious, culturally appropriate and sustainably developed food is a problem that disproportionately affects aboriginal and northern communities in Canada. There are a number of factors that limit one's ability to acquire this food. One of the major factors is income. We know that more than 20% of aboriginal people fall below the Statistics Canada low-income cutoff rate. By way of comparison, only 11% of the rest of our population shares this circumstance.

Therefore, we see how the factors that affect one's ability to purchase food are disproportionately felt among Canada's aboriginal population. This is reflected in the 2007-2008 Inuit health survey by the Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment, which demonstrated that 70% of adults living in Nunavut are food insecure. These are some of the highest figures among all developed nations.

These figures demonstrate that federal programs, like nutrition north Canada, which are aimed at addressing this issue, could be improved. The program's lack of transparency makes it impossible for observers to see if subsidies directed to food suppliers are actually being passed along to consumers. Ultimately, what is happening is that food costs in northern Canada continue to rise, despite a federal program designed to address the phenomenon. Nutrition north Canada also dismisses the reality that some of the best and most nutritious food consumed by aboriginal peoples is available through traditional means, hunting and fishing.

However, we have to remember that this is not an issue limited to aboriginal peoples but is increasingly faced by more and more Canadians. Since the 1980s, we have witnessed food banks become permanent fixtures across the country. What were once emergency assistance measures were used by more than three-quarters of a million Canadians in March of this year alone. Almost 40% of those were children. However, food banks have little or no government funding and are chronically understaffed. We must commend the organizations and civic-minded volunteers whose hard work is all that stands before people having to make difficult choices, like between paying rent and buying good nutritious food.

While the Conservative government does little to address the problem of food insecurity, volunteers and organizations across Canada, like the Elliot Lake food bank, continue to work hard to help Canadian families struggling with the unacceptable choices I mentioned. These organizations are a part of the solution but are not equipped to address a food crisis of this magnitude. Canada prides itself on being among the most developed nations. The government has a role to play to ensure that the most vulnerable in our population have access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food.

The UN report on the right to food highlights some practical ways we can address the issue of food insecurity facing too many Canadians. As the report notes, we have to encourage the federal, provincial and territorial governments to meet with aboriginal groups to discuss access to land and natural resources and how this affects nutrition north Canada and the right to food.

We see far too often that people are left without food. When will the government start talking about these issues? How many more people have to go without adequate food before we start developing a national food strategy?

Food SafetyAdjournment Proceedings

7:10 p.m.

Glengarry—Prescott—Russell Ontario

Conservative

Pierre Lemieux ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture

Mr. Speaker, there is a bit of confusion. The question my colleague on the other side should be following up on deals with CFIA and food safety as opposed to food security. However, since she has raised the issue of food security, I would like to make a few comments.

A key part of food security is the actual production of food. Here in Canada, our farmers produce a high quantity of high-quality food, and we know this. Farmers feed our cities. Farmers feed Canadians. We actually over-produce a number of commodities. This member spoke about a food crisis in Canada. However, in our pork and beef sectors and in wheat, canola and soy, we over-produce in terms of domestic consumption. That is why it is so important that our government put in place free trade agreements. Those are the free trade agreements the opposition is opposed to and fights every step of the way. These free trade agreements are important, because they open foreign markets to our farmers who produce their high-quality products.

Therefore, I do not understand this member when she speaks about a food crisis here in Canada, when, in fact, we produce plenty of food to feed the people of Canada and to export to people of other nations.

The other point I want to mention is that food safety is indeed a key part of food security. I want to highlight the fact that Sylvain Charlebois, who is a well-known food safety expert, recently stated that CFIA's annual budget is far more per capita than any other industrialized nation's. I bring this up because the opposition refuses to acknowledge that food safety is part of food security. I say that because it is important to note that the opposition has voted against all our funding increases for the CFIA for food safety.

For example, in budget 2011, we committed $100 million over five years to build science capacity and to implement inspection modernization, including enhanced training. What did the opposition members do? They voted against those measures.

As the CFIA continues to modernize its inspection approaches, it will ensure that there continues to be enough inspection staff to protect the health and safety of Canadians. In fact, since 2006, the agency's field inspection staff has increased by more than 700. That is an increase of 25%. What did the members of the opposition do? They voted against all of those resource and financial increases for the CFIA to improve food safety.

In budget 2012 we provided $51 million over two years to the CFIA, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada to continue their food-safety activities. Our recent budget would strengthen food safety and our government's commitment to the health and safety of Canadians.

I would ask the opposition members to recognize that food safety plays a key role in food security. I would ask them to stand in their places and vote for the types of measures our government is bringing to reinforce and improve food safety here in Canada.

Food SafetyAdjournment Proceedings

7:15 p.m.

NDP

Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON

Mr. Speaker, as members know, we speak on a variety of issues, and I have spoken on food security on a number of occasions, so obviously, I may have picked the wrong question today. Regardless, there is still a big crisis here in Canada. Whether it is with respect to CFIA or the food security piece, the fact is, as we have seen with the tainted meat, that the government is not getting the job done, and the numbers the Conservatives quote are actually false.

As we go on, whether it is with respect to food security or food safety, at the end of the day, this is a government that is not getting the job done. The Conservatives are reducing the inspections field, and they are certainly not addressing the issue with respect to Nutrition North Canada. There are many first nations people who are doing without food. Many people in our communities have to rely on food banks, and many food banks are having a difficult time keeping up with the demand.

Food SafetyAdjournment Proceedings

7:15 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Speaker, I simply have to go back to the fact that my colleague continues to be confused. She was confused about the question she was asking tonight, and now she is confused when she says that the numbers are false, because they are not false.

In fact, I will reiterate the numbers. Since 2006, our government has hired an additional 700 inspection staff for the CFIA. That is on the CFIA website. This member is welcome to check it out.

In budget 2011, there was an additional $100 million in federal funding for food safety activities. That is fact. It is also fact that the opposition members voted against that measure.

In budget 2012, there was an additional $51 million for food safety activities. That is fact, and it is also a fact that the members of the opposition voted against that as well.

This member is confused, and I am glad that she recognizes that food safety is part of food security. However, she now needs to start standing with her colleagues to vote in favour of these important measures we are putting in place to improve food safety here in Canada.

Food SafetyAdjournment Proceedings

7:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

The hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso not being present to raise the matter for which adjournment notice has been given, the notice is being withdrawn.

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7:18 p.m.)