Jane Stewart

[Employment Insurance, March 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this is laughable. The hon. member is suggesting that the only reason she would raise a question is because she got an access to information request served. We have discussed this in the House on a number of occasions. Their critic has debated this issue in the House. It is the government that has made administrative changes to the provisions and if that party had had its way nothing would have changed.

[Employment Insurance, March 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we did improve the administration of this aspect of the Employment Insurance Act. The only guilt that should be felt in the House is the guilt of that party standing up here asking questions when time after time it rejected the intention and the action of the government to improve the process.

[Employment Insurance, March 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, last summer we used regulations to improve the administration of the undeclared earnings provisions. There was a 30 day period of consultation, of talking specifically with and asking Canadians for their views on this. Did we hear from that member? Did we hear from that party? Not at all.

[Employment Insurance, March 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wrote to me, I would have thought he might have talked to his own critic. A year ago in the House we talked specifically about making changes to the undeclared earnings provision. The critic at the time for that party said “it is hard to justify not penalizing someone who has misrepresented the facts”. She went on to say “It is hard to imagine that people would not be penalized for doing so”.

Do they not talk among themselves?

[Employment Insurance, March 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, again I categorically reject the premise of the hon. member's question.

Let us be clear here. It is this government that has made administrative improvements to the undeclared earnings provision. If that party had its way, those changes would not have occurred. That party stood in the House and said that it categorically rejected our intention to make those changes.

[Employment Insurance, March 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is wrong. He is wrong either because he does not understand the process or because he is deliberately trying to confuse Canadians.

What we are talking about here are individuals who were in receipt of employment insurance benefits for which they were not eligible because they had earnings that they did not declare.

Let me further confirm that the only time that administrative penalties were assessed were in cases where fraud was determined.

[Employment Insurance, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my department is reviewing a proposal to charge interest on employment insurance debt related to fraud only and not to debt accrued as a result of mistakes. This intention was signalled in our report on plans and priorities last year.

[Employment Insurance, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there are two things I would like to make clear.

First of all, and this is important, it is only in cases of fraud when EI claimants are required to pay back more than what they have taken. This is an administrative penalty.

The other important aspect is if the hon. member has individual cases that she would like the department to review, we would be glad to do that. I would also remind her that every EI claimant has the opportunity to participate in the full appeal process that is part and parcel of the overall employment insurance system.

[Employment Insurance, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as fantastic as this sounds, this is the first opportunity I have had to congratulate the hon. member on becoming critic of my portfolio. Her lack of questions suggested to me that perhaps she agreed with her predecessor, the member for Richmond who, with the ultimate support from my department and the government, decided that if one cannot beat them, one might as well join them.

[Employment Insurance, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this line of questioning gets more and more interesting. In fact, it is quite disingenuous.

Last year when we were discussing in the House the question of undeclared earnings, the then chief critic for that party said about this very issue:

We will not be supporting that amendment. We find it very difficult to justify supporting somebody who deliberately scams the system...We are not prepared to support this.

What has changed?