Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with our whip, my colleague from Salaberry—Suroît.
We know that employment insurance needs to be overhauled. This government did not get the job done in the last Parliament. The Bloc Québécois has always advocated for improvements to the employment insurance program and all its benefits.
Improvements to the special EI benefit for serious illnesses are long overdue. We can really see the problem when we know someone dealing with a serious illness like cancer.
On December 9, the leader of the Bloc Québécois and I spoke publicly in support of the demands of two cancer survivors. You will remember that Émilie Sansfaçon and Marie-Hélène Dubé came to the House as they had been fighting for years to have the federal government make necessary changes to the special sickness benefits and increase them from 15 to 50 weeks.
To that end, our motion is very simple and very clear. I am going to repeat it.
That the House call on the government to increase the special Employment Insurance sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 50 weeks in the upcoming budget in order to support people with serious illnesses, such as cancer.
In its election platform, the Liberal Party promised to increase EI sick benefits from 15 to 26 weeks. That is fine, but it is not enough. It is not nearly enough.
Need I remind hon. members, as we did earlier, how this program got started more than 40 years ago? In fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer talked about it. The original EI sickness benefit period of 15 weeks was based on surveys by the Department of Employment and Social Development showing that only 23% of claimants returned to work immediately after the 15-week benefit period ended. Among the remaining claimants, 82% took 16 weeks or more before returning to work.
Even when this benefit was created it was clear that just 15 weeks was woefully inadequate. The content of the program was therefore based on the proportion of claimants who returned to work more quickly rather than on the majority of the program's claimants. We could correct this mistake, which I would describe as historic, by supporting the motion before us today.
Let us imagine for a moment that we were diagnosed with a serious illness that prevented us from working and forced us to rely on these special sickness benefits. I am sure that we all have family or friends who are going through this. As if getting such news were not bad enough, these people also have to take the necessary steps and meet several criteria before they can access the program.
I will not get into details, but in order to qualify, a worker must have worked 600 hours to receive 55% of their earnings for 15 weeks. The House can raise that number from 15 to 50 to genuinely reflect the reality of those in need.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, extending EI sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 50 would cost an additional $1.1 billion a year. To absorb the cost, EI premiums would have to be raised by six cents per $100 of insurable earnings. That is feasible. We must not forget that this $1.1-billion cost is based on a benefit period of 50 weeks. However, that is not the reality. The 50 weeks of benefits would be in line with what workers receive when they lose their job.
Not everyone will take full advantage of 50 weeks of EI sickness benefits. The goal of every worker is to go back to work healthy, and the purpose of this program is to protect people who are really in need.
In terms of fairness, compassionate care benefits are a special case. We do not object to offering 26 weeks of benefits to people caring for loved ones at risk of dying within six months. What we find peculiar is that people caring for a loved one get more weeks of benefits than people who are sick themselves. That is not right.
When we say that the Liberals promised to offer 26 weeks of benefits because the Canadian Cancer Society and the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada called for it, we are talking statistics. When we talk to people who are affected, like Ms. Sansfaçon and others who have received multiple cancer diagnoses or been diagnosed with MS, people who have been unable to work for more than 50 weeks, people who have been fighting for years, and unemployed workers' associations from all of our regions and those of other provinces, it becomes very clear that extending benefits to 50 weeks is a matter of fairness and dignity.
It is possible that not everyone will use 50 weeks of benefits. However, one thing that is certain is that 26 weeks of benefits are not enough. We will be creating a space where we neglect people who need benefits. We do not want to create a black hole in EI sickness benefits as we have done for seasonal workers.
We absolutely must guarantee 50 weeks of benefits to avoid future situations like the ones experienced by two individuals who came to testify. When someone is diagnosed with cancer and knows they will need treatment, their first thought should not be how they will make ends meet. Financial considerations should not be a greater concern than care and treatment. The testimony was very compelling.
We are talking about returning to work. Everyone hopes to go back to work. Our system is based on that. People who lose their job want to find another one. People who need sickness benefits for serious illnesses also hope to recover and go back to work. According to the Supreme Court of Canada, the employment insurance power “must be interpreted generously. Its objectives are not only to remedy the poverty caused by unemployment, but also to maintain the ties between unemployed persons and the labour market.”
The Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses provided some good statistics in the brief it submitted to the Standing Committee on Finance, including this fact: “Of all the G7 countries, excluding the United States but including Russia, Canada has the worst health benefits coverage of any country”.
Here, we make choices. We take care of our people. Employment insurance provides only 15 weeks of special benefits to a person with a serious illness, while workers who lose their job are entitled to benefits for up to 50 weeks. We have to restore fairness and give sick people the chance to recover with dignity.
Several similar bills have been introduced in the House. In 2012, the Liberals, who were on the opposition benches at the time, introduced one such bill, and the Prime Minister, who was just an MP back then, voted in favour of it, so it is possible.
The Liberal government claims to be working in a spirit of co-operation. It says it supports the middle class and workers. That means this bill could be passed quickly.