Pierre Pettigrew

[Employment Insurance, October 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly do not want to make unemployment more accessible to Canadian workers; on the contrary, we want to make the job market more accessible to Canadians.

What the study that was made public this morning showed very clearly is that 78% of workers who have some sort of connection to the labour force and who have not left their jobs without just cause are covered by the employment insurance system.

As for those who are not covered, it is because they have not worked long enough, or maybe because they have never worked and have never paid EI premiums.

[Employment Insurance, October 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I totally agree, which is why I note that close to 80% of laid-off workers are covered by the employment insurance system, as this morning's Statistics Canada report shows very clearly.

There are other ways of fighting poverty as well, which is why our government created a national child tax benefit specifically to combat poverty where it counts most, with the children who constitute our future.

[Employment Insurance, October 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the EI system covers 78% of Canadians who have some connection with the labour force. What the member is saying is that the EI system should cover people who have never been employed, for instance.

People who have never been employed are not covered by the EI system. People who have voluntarily left their job, without justification, are not covered by the system, nor are self-employed workers.

The member should wake up to the fact that the system is doing what it is designed to do.

[Employment Insurance, October 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, what the survey showed is that 78% of workers who have had some sort of connection with the labour force during the previous year are covered by the EI system.

What the survey showed was that the number of unemployed workers actually receiving benefits was not an indication of the system's effectiveness.

What the survey showed was that workers who do not qualify for EI are those the system was never intended to assist in the first place.

[Employment Insurance, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, what I have been trying to get across to the Bloc Quebecois from the word go is that one is doing young people a disservice if one makes the employment insurance system readily accessible to them. If it is too easy to get employment insurance, this is an invitation to drop out of school.

What our government wants to do is to encourage young people to stay in school. When they want to make the transition to the work force, we have a youth employment strategy to help them to do so. That is what we want, not youth unemployment.

[Employment Insurance, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that, by cramming three or four questions into one, the hon. member of the Bloc Quebecois is letting me take my pick.

No decision has been taken with respect to the EI fund. We are holding discussions as part of the current pre-budgetary discussions and my priority, as Minister of Human Resources Development, and I made this very clear to the House, is to continue to serve the workers of this country effectively and help them get back into the job market.

[Employment Insurance, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we already have an employment insurance commission, which works very well. Our responsibility is to the workers.

We have always respected the law, and I object to the insinuations in the very wording of the hon. member's question that we have not respected the law.

This government is committed to working on behalf of Canadians, those who are working and those who are not, and we will continue to work to help get people back into the work force, before anything else.

[Employment Insurance, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I find it most interesting that there are so many people offering to administer employment insurance now it is in a surplus situation. There were precious few of them when there was a $6 billion deficit.

Moreover, there already is a commission made up of worker and employer representatives, and we have worked together extremely well over the years.

[Employment Insurance, October 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I can assure you of one thing and that is that young people from Quebec like those from the rest of the country are benefiting from the Youth Employment Strategy, which is vital to helping them into the labour market, to fight this barrier—transition from school to the labour market.

We have adopted general policies as well to enable young people to remain in school longer. The best guarantee of a job in the future is to remain in school as long as possible.

This government wants a future for young people, not unemployment and passive assistance, which is what the members of the Bloc Quebecois wants for them.

[Employment Insurance, October 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am always saddened when I see a young member of the Bloc Quebecois rise to ask about unemployment for young people, when this government is trying to give them work and a better entry into the labour market.

As regards participation in our employment insurance system, we have to realize, and Statistics Canada's preliminary data indicate this, that those not covered by employment insurance are perhaps those who—