Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the member for Davenport, who introduced Bill C‑273. Everyone on the Standing Committee on Finance very much appreciates her contribution.
I studied economics for years, and I remember that the great union leader Michel Chartrand published a book about citizen's income with Michel Bernard. I was immediately intrigued by the idea. I was also surprised to learn that right-wingers such as the father of neoliberalism, Milton Friedman, also supported the concept. My professors and classmates and I debated it during our classes.
Whether it goes by guaranteed minimum income, basic income, universal allowance or basic living stipend, citizen's income will feature prominently in political debates in the years to come in Quebec, in Canada and around the world. There are two reasons for this: one, the unprecedented accumulation of wealth by advanced societies, most of which is being hoarded by a handful of individuals and must be redistributed; and two, the unprecedented growth in precarious employment, with its attendant insecurity, poverty and misery.
In Canada, the wealthiest one per cent hold 10% of the wealth, while over one-third of the labour force hold non-standard jobs. The social safety net no longer protects these part-time, self-employed or temporary workers. That is what this pandemic has proven, since the employment insurance regime fell apart as soon as the crisis began and the crisis seems to have once more exacerbated inequalities.
The various social programs, especially employment insurance and social assistance, do not provide the minimum social safety net our fellow citizens are entitled to receive. It is not surprising that vulnerable workers raise their eyebrows when promises are made regarding the right to a citizen’s income that would be paid without the exclusions and bureaucratic nitpicking that come with existing programs.
However, this generous plan to redistribute wealth in our society runs contrary to another plan: that of the guaranteed livable income promoted by advocates of neo-liberalism, which would be just enough to enable people to eke out a living in exchange for the dismantling of the current social safety net. Once again, the benefits of such a policy depend on how it is done and to what extent. Once again, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.
Support for individuals and families is the responsibility of Quebec and the provinces, not Ottawa. Let us look at an example and ask ourselves about the consequences of allowing a program to be run by Ottawa instead of Quebec.
In 1940, Quebec ceded its jurisdiction over employment insurance to Ottawa through a constitutional amendment. As reform after reform was made to the system, employment insurance eventually lost its primary purpose and practically its fundamental meaning. EI collapsed at the beginning of the crisis, even though its very purpose was to provide insurance in this type of extreme situation, but it was already failing to fulfill its role even before the pandemic hit. Barely four out of 10 unemployed workers were entitled to EI benefits. For women and youth, it was about one in three. This tracks with the increase in the total percentage of jobs that are not permanent full time, which is over 40%. What is more, the different governments in Ottawa changed EI from an insurance program into a hidden tax by pilfering $59 billion from the fund, money that was effectively taken from the unemployed. Quebec agreed to a constitutional amendment and Ottawa did not play its role. It betrayed us.
The majority of the programs in the social safety net, aside from employment insurance, fall under Quebec's jurisdiction. I am talking about welfare, the CSST, the QPP, child benefits, disability benefits, and so on.
A guaranteed minimum income in Quebec would require a major overhaul. Because so many programs have been adopted since the 1960s, it would be very complicated to dismantle the existing social safety net and bring in this universal policy. Dismantling these programs could end up making many people receiving government assistance worse off. I am not saying that we should not do this because it is complicated, but we need to be well aware of what we are doing. We would have to ensure that no one who might be affected by this kind of change would see any change to their well-being. I am thinking about seniors, single mothers and people living with a disability.
Furthermore, because of the way Canada's federation is structured, this kind of program would require the federal and provincial governments to work together closely, which is always a big challenge. In the best case scenario, Ottawa collaborates in the initial stages of a program, as appears to be the case with the new child care program. However, Ottawa has an unfortunate tendency to renege on its commitments and break its word. Health care and EI are examples of that. Just ask the first nations: This country has a history of failing to keep its word.
If Quebec wanted to establish a citizen's income, it would have to repatriate the employment insurance program. However, as constitutional scholar Henri Brun pointed out to the Commission nationale d’examen de l’assurance‑emploi, co-chaired by Gilles Duceppe and Rita Dionne-Marsolais, the federal government's exclusive jurisdiction over employment insurance “could not be transferred to the provinces, or Quebec in particular, without a constitutional amendment” that would have first obtained the agreement of seven provinces representing more than 50% of Canada's population. As they say, good luck, Charlie Brown.
In practical terms, establishing a citizen's income, or even a more modest guaranteed minimum income program, necessarily involves the collaboration of the two levels of government, because the income security system is a complex web of assistance and social assistance measures, not to mention there would be major implications for income tax rate structures.
If Ottawa were to embark on such an initiative, as suggested by Bill C-273, it would effectively be expanding, not to say intruding, into Quebec's constitutional areas of jurisdiction. The history of such intrusions calls for caution, to say the least.
Does the Liberal Party really want to reopen the Constitution? That is what should be done here with, I repeat, the agreement of the seven provinces that represent over 50% of the Canadian population.
Take health, for example. Although health falls under provincial jurisdiction, that did not prevent Ottawa from using the spending power it is granted under the Canadian Constitution to intervene. In 1957, the federal government passed the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act by promising to cover 50% of the cost of the provincial and territorial plans that provide hospital insurance to all of their residents. In 1966, the federal government passed the Medical Care Act by promising to share the costs fifty-fifty.
What is happening today? Federal transfers may have covered 50% of health care costs in the 1970s, but today they barely cover one-fifth of Quebec's health care costs. What is more, this percentage will drop to about 18% in a few years because Ottawa unilaterally decided to use a new formula related to GDP growth, which will deprive Quebec of billions of dollars. We know that this government's approach involves throwing the provinces some crumbs if they meet certain conditions. The Liberal health minister from the previous Quebec government referred to this as predatory federalism.
The federal government also changed its rules for how it allocates budgetary funding among the provinces. The allocation is now done on a per capita basis, even though Quebec's population is older and seniors depend more on health services than younger people do. The Government of Quebec calculates that because of this new rule the province will lose $174 million a year and over $2 billion over the next ten years.
The Commission nationale d'examen de l'assurance-emploi showed that the federal system is not adapted to the specific needs of Quebec and its regions, any more than the federal health transfers are. There is every reason to believe that it would be the same story with the citizens' income.
To recap, if Ottawa wants to set up a guaranteed minimum income that would enable people to live with dignity, it would have to reopen the Constitution with the approval of seven provinces representing over 50% of the Canadian population. Canada, Quebec and the provinces would also have to agree to replace, in whole or in part, existing social programs, such as EI, supports for seniors like the GIS, social assistance, programs provided by Quebec's Commission des normes, de l'équité de la santé et de la sécurité du travail, Quebec pension plan payments, child benefits, disability benefits and so on. Governments would also have to ensure that nobody affected by the transition, such as seniors, single-parent families and people with disabilities, would end up worse off than before. Lastly, we would all have to trust Ottawa and hope it keeps its promise not to take a program everyone finally agreed on and slash it a few years later. That has never happened because Ottawa has never shown that it deserves anyone's trust when it comes to administering social measures.
The Bloc Québécois finds the idea of citizen's income to be worthy of consideration, but Ottawa cannot be the one in charge. Quebec absolutely has to be the one in charge because running it in the context of the Canadian federation would pretty much be mission impossible. In other words, and I mean this sincerely, a citizen's income that actually works is possible only if Quebec is independent.