Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak today to the importance of extending the EI benefit to 50 weeks for people who are suffering illness.
Those who have followed the House for some time will know that in the last Parliament, the NDP had a private member's bill to accomplish exactly this. In the Parliament before that, the NDP had a private member's bill to accomplish exactly this. We are happy to continue pushing and arguing for this change, because we know it matters to a lot of Canadians.
I think everyone in the House and across the country who might be listening will have had the experience, either themselves or that of a loved one, a good friend or a work colleague, where they cannot perform their regular work duties due to an illness. We know what a difficult time that is in their lives, and that of their families and friends.
However, that difficulty is compounded, seriously, when they cannot pay their bills at the end of the month because there is no wage replacement in place. That is exactly why people might want to insure their wages, which is what Canadian workers do in conjunction with employers under the employment insurance program.
It is incumbent on us to allow that vehicle for Canadians to insure themselves. This is not a charity case. This is not a government handout. This is a program that employer and employees pay into to insure the wages of employees when they need it. Certainly, when people get cancer or some other form of serious illness that inhibits them from being able to go to work and do their jobs, that is exactly the kind of case in which they need that wage replacement. It is one of the reasons we have, and ought to have, employment insurance in the country.
Earlier in the debate today, a number of members asked “Why 50 weeks? What is special about 50 weeks?” The Bloc leader mentioned one reason why 50 weeks was important. If employees have been working for the amount of time required to qualify for employment insurance and they get laid off, those employees would get up to 50 weeks of coverage. It makes sense that if through no fault of their own, not because they were laid off but because they have become seriously ill, they would qualify for the same treatment as those who were laid off. That is certainly one very good reason why 50 weeks matters.
Another reason why 50 weeks matters is that one in two Canadians, in his or her lifetime, will have some kind of serious illness, with an average treatment length in the neighbourhood of 50 or 52 weeks. At some time, in all likelihood, half the people in this room will face a serious health challenge that will take almost a year to treat. It makes sense that if we are insuring ourselves against lost wages in the event of sickness, we do it in a way that is commensurate with the likely absence from work resulting from that.
A third reason why it makes sense to extend sickness benefits under EI to 50 weeks is because a lot of long-term disability plans kick in at the one-year mark. Right now, to get from the end of the 15-week coverage to when long-term disability would kick in takes somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40 weeks. If we had a 50-week sickness benefit, that would make that transition period a matter of only a couple of weeks, effectively giving every Canadian, no matter what workplace they work in, whether they are unionized or non-unionized, whether their collective agreement has a short-term disability plan or not, a short-term disability plan to help bridge them to when a longer-term disability plan might kick in.
Those are three very good reasons to set the goal at 50 weeks. The only reason not to would be if there was a significant financial cost that Canadians could not bear. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has done a study on this very issue and has said that the difference in premiums would be approximately 6¢ on every $100 of insurable wages. Folks can correct me later if I am wrong. This sounds quite affordable to me. I think a lot of Canadians would not mind paying for this. That is purpose of having this debate.
We have had this debate many times in the House and we have heard a lot of compelling testimony as to why we ought to do this. It is frustrating for us on this side of the House that we have not been able to get there yet, because the reasons for getting there are quite compelling.
If we think about what that means for the plan, we are not talking about raising taxes. We are talking about somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1 billion a year to provide this important insurance to Canadians who are sick and not able to perform their duties at work.
I recall when the Liberal government in the mid-nineties made significant changes to the EI program. That government made it harder to access EI and it raised the premiums. Over 15 or 20 years, a relatively short period of time for the amount of money we are talking about, that government accumulated a $57-billion surplus in the EI account. The Conservative government then transferred it under the auspices of the PMO to do we know not what. We do not know where it went.
The idea that the employment insurance fund, which is funded apart from tax revenues through premiums paid by employees and employers, cannot afford to do an extra $1 billion a year, when that represents only 6¢ on $100 of insurable earnings, and when the government had such a massive surplus that was squirrelled away, is just a farce.
The fact is that $57-billion surplus could have paid for the extension of this benefit, which will do a lot for many Canadians right across the country, for over 50 years. We had the money. Where did it go? That is the question.
Even without getting that money back, the go-forward cost of making this change is a reasonable one for a very concrete benefit to Canadians who are living out some of the worst times of their lives. The sickness and the health challenges are enough. They ought not to be compounded by further financial difficulty.
Let us not kid ourselves either. Getting a 55% wage replacement is not exactly a financial paradise. It is not a panacea. Figuring out how to get by on that level of wage replacement is challenging enough for people who are facing serious illness. The least we could do is extend a hand to Canadians and ensure that the employment insurance program they already self-finance, along with their employers, covers them in times of great need.
That is why we are very proud to support the motion today. It is why we have been proud to bring this proposal forward many times in many other Parliaments. It is why, notwithstanding whatever might happen on this particular motion, the NDP is going to be there every step of the way fighting for this change until we get it done.