Mr. Speaker, may I continue my speech without being interrupted every five seconds? The situation is that someone has taken a dislike to me for no good reason.
As I was saying, EI allows people to work in jobs that match their qualifications. If someone is an engineer or a dentist, they will be more productive for society if they work in that field. However, during the buffer period between two jobs, that person needs to have time to get their bearings, apply for jobs, go to interviews and, a few months later, if they have not found anything suitable in their area, they might start sending out resumés in a neighbouring area. They might move to another region, who knows. However, if that person is unable to pay for groceries, they will work anywhere. Again, whatever job they take will be a noble one, but it will not match their qualifications. At that point, society as a whole loses out. We have been promised EI reform for more than 10 years.
Another group that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities heard from was the Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi. That was in October. That group submitted a brief with some very interesting recommendations for improving the EI system, including access to EI. As we know, nearly half the workers who contribute to EI will not have access to it if they lose their job. That is shocking.
I have already said this in the House, but I challenge anyone to shop around for home insurance and find an agent who says that, if their house burned down, the company would not pay out half the time. As far as I am concerned, I would not choose that company. I would keep shopping around. If I pay for insurance, I want to be covered. Workers, however, cannot change their insurance. It is a federal program. It needs to be improved, because this is a flagrant injustice. What is more, we know where the EI surpluses go. They go into the consolidated fund. It is like a misappropriation of funds. Let us call a spade a spade. I do not think it is right.
The group recommended that the government “establish an eligibility threshold of 350 hours or 13 weeks” and “abolish total exclusions from EI”. As we know, if someone quits their job, they are not eligible. Perhaps that could be changed, and they could be eligible for a shorter period of time, depending on the context. Sometimes people leave a job because of harassment or something like that. There may be good reasons. Once again, we need to be smart and measured.
Another recommendation was to “provide EI protection regardless of maternity, parental or paternity benefits received”. That problem is appalling. Quebec has a parental insurance plan, and I know of a number of women who went on maternity leave, went back to work and then lost their jobs a few weeks or months later. Then they were told that they had not accumulated enough hours over the past year to qualify for EI benefits. Maternity leave is supposed to be considered employment. It seems to me that this would be easy to fix. That is a serious injustice. There is something wrong with this system.
Next, there was talk of improving the system, granting 50 weeks of benefits regardless of hours worked and trying to address EI's notorious spring gap. That is important, too. The Bloc Québécois also introduced a bill to give people with serious illnesses the right to 50 weeks of benefits, but that has not yet been embraced by the federal government. That is not acceptable either. Another recommendation was to set the benefit rate at a minimum of 70%, with the calculation based the best 12 weeks with a minimum threshold of $500, because depending on the job, incomes can sometimes be very low, which amounts to having no employment insurance at all and putting people in poverty.
Beyond all that, I urge that we, as parliamentarians, try to come up with long-term solutions for the next generation, that we try to understand the impacts and, for goodness' sake, that we avoid spouting easy rhetoric just for the sake of good Internet sound bites. I could be doing that too, but that is not why I am here. The people who elected me to this place expect me to do my job intelligently and to represent the men and women of my riding properly and decently, setting aside my personal interests to advance their interests and for the betterment of our society. As a sovereignist party, I think we set an example here. Some people accuse us of being separatists and the like. While our mandate is to stand up for Quebec's interests until independence comes, we take our role seriously, without harming the rest of Canada. I think that deserves more appreciation than it seems to get. That is what I wanted to say. I look forward to taking questions from my colleagues.