Mr. Speaker, when the recession hit in late 2008, Ottawa enacted temporary measures to stabilize the economy and help households make ends meet. The most important of these was adding an extra five weeks to the EI benefits. When the economy is bad, it takes workers longer than usual to find new jobs. This would be especially true when one sector or region is at the centre of most job losses, which we have now with Alberta and the energy industry. Another five weeks of benefits would recognize this reality and give workers the time they need to find a good job. Increasing access to benefits would make the stimulus more effective and equitable.
The Liberals' EI election promises slated to take effect in January 2017 would seem to be straightforward, and there are some that must take place now. The nuances of these changes can be discussed meaningfully as time goes on, but we also have the so-called low-hanging fruit that our motion addresses here today.
First is the promise to eliminate the eligibility requirement of 910 hours of insured employment for new entrants and re-entrants to the labour market. If the federal government eliminated the higher requirement for this group immediately, it would make access to EI fairer, especially for those who are new to the workforce.
Second, unemployed workers are facing significant delays in getting benefits approved, receiving decisions on appeals, or even having their questions answered. Cuts to front-line services over the past few years have been devastating to the EI program. More staff must be hired to make sure the benefits flow without delay. It would also take little time to scrap the 2012 changes to EI, such as reversing the three tiers of workers, returning to the previous definition of suitable employment, and restoring the best 14 weeks pilot programs that created a single national standard for determining benefit levels.
Finally, existing skills training programs are important to help workers transition to new employment.
Another Liberal election promise was an increase of $200 million to fund provincial literacy and essential skills training aimed at those who do not qualify for EI. While it is not part of EI, it would help where it is needed most.
We believe these are changes that can be done quickly and painlessly. We salute the new government's commitments to make sizeable investments in infrastructure. The Liberals have promised to provide much-needed investments into the areas of affordable housing, public transit, and municipal water system upgrades over the next few years. All of these are necessary and will contribute to economic growth and the well-being of Canadians, but they will not give the economy the boost it needs now. Employment insurance can help fill the gap, and that is what we are here to do today.
In the Windsor-Essex area, within which we find my riding of Windsor—Tecumseh, the unemployment rate is 9.6%, which is significantly higher than the national rate of 7.2% now. These people, like the unemployed throughout the country, have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and are at the mercy of market forces, which they did not create and over which have no control.
We heard some numbers earlier today in the statements made by other hon. members. I wanted to know what some of these numbers about unemployment meant for my area, so I did some cursory number-crunching as well, the back-of-the-envelope type, just to illustrate my point. While it is not entirely scientific, it is close enough to paint a very poignant picture of the immediacy of the issues that are involved in the motion as it is articulated here today.
While the population of the Windsor area, which is Windsor and Essex County, is around 319,246 people, the percentage of those who are of working age is 67.5% or about 215,491 people.
With an unemployment rate at 9.6%, this would work out to 20,618 people. However, when I again look at the number of people who are currently utilizing EI benefits, according to the government's own figures the number is 5,640. That is 5,640 out of 20,618 people without work. That is how many are eligible to collect EI. That is pretty brutal.
One's thoughts go immediately to the over 16,000 people who are unemployed and yet, for whatever reason, do not have access to employment insurance. I know some of these 16,000 will be students. A small percentage of them will be unable to work. I provide these figures as a broad sense of how many people might be denied access to EI benefits in the Windsor—Essex area.
I know members agree these numbers are horrifying because we know that numbers are numbers and people are people.
I would also like to add that while the debate we are having may require a lot of numbers and statistics, we do not forget that unemployment figures are more than figures, a data table, or a spreadsheet. These are family members, friends, and neighbours. They are parents raising children, our future workforce. They are sons and daughters who are providing for their parents that important informal caregiving that we all need as we age.
As I alluded to earlier, a series of policy changes over the last two decades has made access to EI benefits increasingly difficult. Back in 1990, 83% of unemployed Canadians received benefits, but it took a dive to 42% in 1998, when the former Liberal government redesigned the program to make it far less generous. After further changes by the Harper government the beneficiaries to unemployed ratio fell below 40% in 2012, for the first time in almost 40 years. Further changes in 2013 drove down the eligibility rate to 37%, a new all-time low. It also became tied to absurd rules, like accepting any job the government deemed suitable even if entirely unrelated to one's career, it comes with a 30% pay cut, and requires an hour-long commute.
As job losses are mounting, Canadian families are struggling and they need immediate action from the government. After 20 years of Conservative and Liberal reforms, our employment insurance program is completely broken and is not providing the help that Canadian families need. The Liberals and Conservatives have dramatically slashed access to employment insurance benefits, leaving the majority of unemployed Canadians unprotected.
Over 80% of the unemployed received unemployment insurance benefits before the Liberals devastated the program with its reforms in the 1990s. After the Liberals' reforms, EI coverage fell to less than 50% of the unemployed. Under the Conservatives, access to EI benefits fell to historic lows, with fewer than 4 in 10 unemployed Canadians receiving regular EI benefits.
In December, the last month for which we have data, only 38.9% of unemployed Canadians received benefits. Both the total number and the proportion of unemployed Canadians went down compared to November, even though the number of unemployed Canadians increased.
Economic mismanagement has also contributed to the low number of Canadians receiving EI benefits. According to the parliamentary budget officer, many of the Canadians who are not receiving EI have been unemployed for more than a year, or were employed in precarious work where it made it difficult for them to accumulate enough hours. Currently, to qualify for EI regular benefits a worker needs to work between 420 and 700 hours in the preceding 52 weeks before they can make a claim.The number of hours is based on the regional rate of unemployment in the claimant's region. New entrants and re-entrants need 910 hours to qualify for EI regular benefits.
The NDP has long proposed a threshold of 360 hours for workers, regardless of where they live. The cost of this proposal, based on the NDP's calculations during the campaign, would be $1.2 billion, a cost the EI account can easily afford, given the current surplus and assuming that this pool paid for by workers and their employers is protected.