Norman E. Doyle

[Employment, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry. The Minister of Industry has placed an ad with the federal public service and the ad reads that the minister is on the job hunt for a secretary for his own department. He goes on to say that only people from Ontario or Quebec need apply.

Is Newfoundland's regional minister telling me that only people from Ontario or Quebec may apply for that job within his own department, that Newfoundlanders are not welcome?

[Equalization Program, February 9th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is not good enough to say that the equalization formula cannot be changed or adjusted unless the provinces agree.

The federal government has already adjusted the clawback provision for Newfoundland's Hibernia project. The Minister of Finance gave every indication during the St. John's West byelection that an adjustment could be made to the equalization formulas.

Will the Minister of Finance be clear as to whether the former premier of Newfoundland, now Canada's Minister of Industry, raised our hopes in vain on this issue?

[Heating Fuel Rebate, February 8th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are outraged. The government has so mismanaged the heating relief fund that multiple cheques are going to some households, prisoners are receiving the rebates and people who do not pay for heat are qualifying for heating relief. Yet Canadians who need the assistance to help combat the high cost of heating fuel are not receiving these funds.

How could the government have administered this program so poorly? Canadian taxpayers do not want to see their money being given to people who are not bearing the burden of high heating costs. The government has allowed all GST credit recipients to qualify for this relief, at a cost of $1.3 billion. There is no connection between receipt of a GST rebate and entitlement to a heating fuel rebate.

The government has shown once again that it is governing by default. Could the government tell us why some people are receiving rebates when they are not paying heating fuel costs? All we are asking for here is a bit of common sense.

[Speech From The Throne, February 6th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, how could I not agree with the hon. member? He is such a forward looking individual and such a sound thinker. How could we not agree with him?

We have a very exciting future in Atlantic Canada but we have to have a forward thinking government to take advantage of the opportunities that are in Atlantic Canada.

[Speech From The Throne, February 6th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is great if one happens to live in a very affluent province. Alberta is rapidly becoming a very affluent province and probably already is. It has its own set of problems to deal with.

Atlantic Canada constantly gets criticized for the kinds of regional programs it has to prop up its economy. The Liberals, the Alliance and other parties criticize the kinds of regional development programs there. They say that they do not work and that we have to do something new.

We are now in the year 2001. The have not provinces, the provinces that are the recipients of equalization payments, want to be net contributors to this country. The only way they can do that is to have some kind of an incentive to develop these resources. The only way to do that is to retool and rejig the equalization formula.

There has been some recognition. When the Minister of Finance came to Newfoundland during the byelection campaign in St. John's West, he made some very good comments about equalization. He said it was time to have a look at it and see what could be done to help out the poorer provinces. A couple of days after he got back, I questioned him on that particular issue and he skated around it. I had reason to believe that he was not really serious about what he had said in Newfoundland.

If the current regional development programs in Atlantic Canada are not working, and maybe some of them are not, then I believe it is time to try something new. The various provinces like Newfoundland, Labrador and those that are the recipients of equalization payments need to have a rejigging and retooling of that formula.

[Speech From The Throne, February 6th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to say a few words in this debate. Let me congratulate you on your elevation to the chair. I will be sharing my time with the member for Fundy—Royal.

In the throne speech debate today, let me touch briefly, if I may, on three very important points as they affect the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

During the last parliament I spoke repeatedly about the devastating effect that cuts to the federal transfers for health and post-secondary education were having on the smaller provinces in Canada, but especially on the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. For many Canadians, those transfers have been restored to early nineties levels with the new agreement on health and post secondary education. However, in the case of Newfoundland and Labrador, we will not return to nineties levels until the year 2006. That is having a very devastating effect on poorer provinces. It is having a devastating effect on the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is one issue that I hope the regional minister for Newfoundland will be able to address. He is a very good friend of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, so I know that he will be quite happy to deal with this particular item when it comes across his desk.

As a matter of fact, when he was premier of Newfoundland just a short time ago, he described the agreement that the federal government signed with the provinces as being no bonanza for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. He pointed out that the funding formula was done on a per capita basis. When the population is declining like it is in Newfoundland and Labrador and when health care is funded on a per capita basis, that is bound to have a detrimental affect.

The old EPF funding formula in place prior to the CHST always had in place an equalization component that could be used for areas with small populations. The equalization formula in the old EPF scheme of things also took into account geographic differences. For instance, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador has hundreds of smaller communities scattered along thousands of miles of coastline. The old EPF formula ensured that an equalization component was built in so that it could take into account the geographic differences we have. We do not see that today in the CHST.

A second item I want to have a word on is an important item, an environmental problem currently being experienced in my riding in St. John's. It has to do with the cleanup of St. John's Harbour. This is an issue that is not only a very important environmental issue but an issue that came to the fore in the recent election campaign and I would be remiss if I did not say a few words about it. It is a matter I raised in the House on a number of different occasions in the last parliament and is an issue that I raised on a number of different occasions in the media. Of course in November it became an election issue.

I was pleased to hear the regional minister for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, who is the present Minister of Industry, make the statement that he would be working very hard with the Prime Minister and with the Minister of Finance, who is a very close friend of the regional minister, to secure funding for the St. John's Harbour cleanup.

It is only a $100 million project, and the province has committed its $30 million. The city of St. John's, Mount Pearl, and the surrounding area, Paradise, have committed their $30 million. The only holdout in this whole funding problem is the federal government. I note that the federal government made available, just before the election campaign, $1.5 billion for the cleanup of Toronto Harbour.

None of us would begrudge Toronto its right to have its harbour beautified and what have you, but I would ask for similar treatment to be given to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in the area of harbour cleanup, a very important environmental issue that needs a measly $30 million.

I note that the federal government had no problem coming up with $2 billion a couple of days ago for Bombardier. Again, we do not begrudge Quebec or any other province their windfalls, but surely an environmental problem of this proportion needs to be looked at very closely by the federal government. Hopefully the regional minister can get together with his good friend, the Minister of Finance, and have this problem looked after immediately.

The other subject that is very close to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador is the current equalization formula that we happen to be under. The Canadian equalization system is a really good system. It will keep us from drowning but it falls far short of helping us swim by ourselves. This is where the equalization formula, in the way it is drafted right now, fails the poorer provinces that have to be recipients of it.

Let me elaborate a little. Under the current equalization formula, new resource revenues raised by the provincial treasury are clawed back dollar for dollar by the federal government. That is not a very good way of doing business. A province is trying to develop resources, but for every dollar in resource revenue taken in by the province the federal government comes along and takes a dollar back. There are not too many incentives built into that kind of system for any province that wants to develop its resources in the manner it wishes.

I am very encouraged by the fact that today we have the premier of Nova Scotia, Mr. Hamm, in town to talk about the current equalization formula. Hopefully he will put forth a series of recommendations to help rejig or retool the formula we have at present.

In Newfoundland we had the Hibernia project, developed just recently. We were able to do a deal with the federal government in which the federal government said it would take back 70 cents instead of a dollar, thus allowing the province to develop the resource base a little more and to keep some of the revenues associated with that. On top of that, the federal government came up with a $1 billion loan guarantee and a $1.5 billion grant. In spite of that, it was able to say that we needed some kind of a better deal as it pertained to the Hibernia development. Of course that was done by the federal PC government.

We have had virtually no recognition from the federal government since that time that the equalization formula should be retooled and rejigged to help provinces like Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Only at the point when we have a new deal on equalization for Newfoundland and Labrador will we be able to rise above a beggar.

[Speech From The Throne, February 6th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is interested in the country's current equalization formula because he is from Quebec and Quebec is a recipient of equalization payments. The current equalization formula keeps a province from drowning but falls far short in that it never gives a province the wherewithal to swim on its own.

As a member from Quebec, a province that receives equalization payments, how would he feel about a change in the current equalization formula to recognize that some provinces need a leg up to develop their natural resources?

[Employment Insurance Act, February 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has asked a very good question and a very important one. I believe that food banks are being used today at unprecedented rates, not only in Newfoundland but in a lot of Atlantic Canada.

I was part of a committee on poverty that travelled this country from Newfoundland to Vancouver. We held public meetings and had people come forward and make presentations. One of the things people said to us consistently was that the unemployment insurance system and the changes that the federal government made to the unemployment insurance system had lowered their income levels to such an extent that they depended on food banks on an almost weekly basis. The government should be held to account for that.

[Employment Insurance Act, February 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, no, that is certainly not the way it should be. I believe there should be a general recognition by the federal government of the fact that we either value seasonal workers or we do not. If a province happens to have a seasonal economy as we do in Atlantic Canada, the federal government can and should be looking at making the employment insurance system a lot more generous. If 10 and 42 was too generous, which it probably was, then 10 and 21 is certainly not as generous as it should be.

This is the question we have to ask ourselves when we are talking about employment insurance: do we value a seasonal economy? Do we value the fishery in Atlantic Canada? Do we value loggers in Atlantic Canada? Do we value construction workers in Atlantic Canada? These people make a very valuable contribution to the Canadian economy.

It is not only Atlantic Canada that has a seasonal economy. Parts of Ontario have a seasonal economy as well. I think it is incumbent upon federal government to realize that it has an obligation toward the regions of the country. We should not always be looking to the centre. To think that to make things better in the centre and things will all of a sudden become a whole lot better in Atlantic Canada is the wrong approach.

The hon. members opposite who happen to be representing ridings in Ontario should realize that. Ontario is not the only province in Canada that makes a contribution to this economy. The people of Atlantic Canada make that contribution as well. Fish may not be very appealing to the member opposite, but fish are a very important part of this economy and we have fishermen in Atlantic Canada who need a more generous employment insurance system than what the federal government is providing now.

[Employment Insurance Act, February 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to say a few words in this debate.

We on this side of the House have been calling for four years for changes to the employment insurance system. The first set of major changes brought in by the Liberal government about four years ago had the effect of making life very miserable for a number of my constituents. It also had the effect of making life very miserable for people in Atlantic Canada generally who happened to live for the most part in a seasonal economy.

When the unemployment insurance system became the employment insurance system, the new rules forced many people in Atlantic Canada to become mobile. The new rules forced many seasonal workers to move because it became much more difficult to qualify for employment insurance benefits. When they did qualify it was for fewer benefits for a shorter period of time.

This caused quite a great deal of difficulty for Atlantic Canadians. Seasonal workers were penalized for the intensity rule, which dropped their rate of benefit every year because they happened to be repeat users of the system.

I do not see too many changes in some of the really important aspects of the unemployment insurance bill. The divisor rule had the effect of lessening the monetary value of the weeks worked and drove down the weekly EI benefit. I do not see too many changes that would reverse that effect.

The net result is that about 35% of unemployed people actually qualify for benefits. Because women of course have a different work pattern than men, about 30% of women actually qualify for benefits. That is causing a great deal of hardship among the workforce generally.

Newfoundland is the hardest hit of the Atlantic provinces with respect to the EI changes. That, combined with the downturn in the fishery, has meant a steady out-migration of people from the province. The population of the province is steadily going down because of many of the draconian measures the government has taken.

The truly sad part of this is that the out-migration was not accidental. It seemed to be a deliberate part of the whole plan. The architects of the new EI system knew that there would be a part of the year when seasonal workers would not be able to qualify for benefits. If they did not qualify for benefits they would be faced with a choice. They would have the choice of digging into their savings, going on welfare or moving to another part of the country.

Some might say so what if they have to move to another part of the country. However, if they happen to be seasonal workers, their wages very often are low. They cannot afford to move their families, lock, stock and barrel, to another part of the country.

The changes brought in by the Liberals in changing the system from UI to EI have cost the province of Newfoundland $1 billion annually. The city of St. John's has been losing $75 million annually. The riding of St. John's East, which is made up of part of the city of St. John's and the rural areas of Conception Bay, is losing about $52 million annually. Neighbouring St. John's West is losing about $56 million annually. Burin—St. George's is losing $80 million a year. A lot of these towns and communities happen to be in a seasonal economy because of the fishery. Newfoundland being on the government side did not seem to help either. In the five ridings outside of St. John's, the EI cuts have had a really devastating effect on the rural parts of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Last fall the government decided to loosen up on some of the EI rules because an election was in the offing, but it failed to pass the EI bill before the writ was dropped. We were supposed to forget then, and we are supposed to forget now, that there has been a massive surplus in the EI account for quite some time. The government could have and should have acted on the unemployment insurance problems in Atlantic Canada long before it did. It did not do so simply because it was leading up to an election, so we have an EI bill before us today that still fails to address the problems of a seasonal economy.

I want to say a few words about women and EI. Earlier I said that about 30% of unemployed Canadian women qualify for benefits these days. That is not my estimate; that is from Statistics Canada as well as the employment insurance commission. Only 30% of unemployed Canadian women actually qualify for benefits.

In the spring budget the Liberals made much of the fact that EI maternity leave would be extended from six months to a full year. Given that only 30% of women qualify for any benefits and given that it is harder to qualify for maternity benefits than it is for regular benefits, only a political party with the gall of the Liberals would boast about improvements to maternity benefits.

There are some good points about the bill and I do not think they should be overlooked. One good point is that the bill raises the income threshold for clawback. There is no clawback for first time claimants and for people who avail themselves of maternity benefits or sick benefits. This is very good and I want to compliment the government on this. People coming off maternity or parental benefits will now have an easier time getting back into the employment insurance system because they will no longer be treated as people with no attachment to the workforce.

Why was all of this not done earlier? Why was this not done this spring when the length of the maternity benefit period was increased? If only 30% of unemployed women qualify for benefits, as I said earlier, all of these improvements are cold comfort to the other 70%.

Also, I do not see any changes in this bill with regard to easing up on the qualifying requirements for regular benefits, nor do I see anything that increases the time during which one can draw regular benefits. This means that there is still a period of the year in which an unemployed person will have no income. The divisor rule, which lowers the monetary value of the weeks worked, is still there and the value of the weekly benefit has not been changed. While the improvements to maternity benefits and the clawback provisions are certainly welcome, for regular benefits the EI system is still nowhere as generous as what it should be.