Mr. Speaker, as I was listening to the speeches of my hon. colleagues from the government and the Bloc, I was struck by the chasm that exists in our country. Essentially the Bloc looks at this legislation as a welfare scheme or as a guaranteed annual income, but the notion of employment or unemployment insurance is secondary to income support.
The government, represented by the parliamentary secretary to the minister, the member for Kenora-Rainy River, who, on introduction of third reading of a bill of such import and magnitude, was exceedingly brief in his comments. He managed to say nothing in 12 or 13 minutes while the member representing the Bloc was able to say it in 40 minutes.
This unemployment or employment insurance creature has been flopping around in the body politic for years and years. It took its early form, the revision of unemployment insurance, in the now famous Forget report. The Forget report, as everyone realizes, is collecting dust somewhere in the murky, musty archives of Parliament. Forget said it would not be a bad idea if unemployment insurance was just that. That was the idea behind employment insurance in the first place.
This new government decided that the cornerstone of its renewal of social programs would address employment insurance. It would do what it had to do and return unemployment insurance to its lofty ideals of being employment insurance.
What do we have here? We have half a loaf. What we really have is an abdication of leadership, an abdication of responsibility, an abdication of the necessity on the part of people elected to Parliament to speak honestly, to lead, to do what is right for the country and for future generations.
What is this all about? I can best describe this by referring to the most obvious change in this legislation. For years in Canada we have had unemployment insurance. Unemployment insurance was supposedly insurance paid for by employees and employers to protect those who were without jobs on a temporary basis while they were looking for new jobs.
What do we do? We change the name. Did we change anything else? Perhaps. What is the cornerstone? `Poof', we change the name from unemployment insurance to employment insurance.
This name change is to put the emphasis where it should be, on employment, and `poof', magically all the problems are to disappear. Guess what? They will not disappear. They will stay right where they are, festering in the middle of the body politic in Canada because we are not addressing them honestly. We are not dealing with the real problems. All we are doing is skirting around the politically correct edges.
Once again we have the opportunity to actually do something. Once again we do not. First and foremost, the responsibility for training, for unemployment insurance, is a provincial responsibility, not a federal responsibility. It should rest closest to the people. It should rest in the provinces.
What is the responsibility of the federal government? The responsibility of the federal government is to look at our nation and ensure that where employment opportunities exist in one part of the country, it is possible for people to get there. We remove barriers for the movement of people. Jobs do not go to the people, people go to the jobs. Water does not run up hill, water runs down hill.
During the course of human history, when has it ever worked that someone would reverse the natural dynamics of nature and have it work in the long term? That is not the way it works.
Let me give an illustration. Over the past six or so years, 87 per cent of the new jobs created in Canada were created in the two western most provinces, British Columbia and Alberta. Yet those two provinces have only 22 per cent of the population.
Ontario and Quebec combined in the same period created 14 per cent of the new jobs, yet they have approximately 67 per cent of the total population of the country.
Let us figure this out. If British Columbia and Alberta over the past few years have created and accounted for 87 per cent of the new jobs created in Canada, and generally speaking Alberta and B.C. are not areas of high unemployment and therefore do not get the benefit and their citizens have to work longer in order to qualify, what is it about the current system enhancing a situation in which the provinces with the lowest rate of employment, the maritimes, continue to suffer?
Are we creating dependence? It seems the evidence is very clear. It has been clear since the 1970s, since some muddled thinking that somehow we can evolve through a situation of the equality of circumstance. The bottom line is we have the equality of opportunity. Circumstance is earned. It is regrettable but true that if someone lives in a part of the country that does not have an employment base and has not had an employment base, it is very likely it will not have an employment base.
If someone wants better for their children, it is evident the children or the family will have to make whatever adjustments to their lives are necessary in order to see that better future. That is the way it has been on earth since the beginning of time.
How does one suppose we came to Canada in the first place? Does anyone believe my ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland or wherever because things were good? Of course not. They came to Canada for a better opportunity for themselves and their children. Why does anyone think people moved from one part of the country to another? It was for the opportunity for themselves and their children.
While we try to create a situation in which water will flow up hill and we see from evidence that it does not flow up hill, we see that by creating dependence all it does is foster the need for more independence, why should we be surprised when we keep coming back to these same problems time after time?
In his opening remarks the member for Kenora-Rainy River referred to the introduction of this act, changes to unemployment insurance, as part of the social program envelope. That is the problem. Employment insurance is not a social program. Employment insurance is no more a social program or should be no more a social program than automobile insurance is a social program; insurance is insurance.
Employment insurance should be exactly that, employment insurance. The premiums should reflect the risk. The insurance paid should reflect the amount of money paid in and the period of
time over which that money has been paid in. It should have some bearing somewhere on reality.
If we are not using the unemployment insurance system for anything other than unemployment, how do we go about getting money to those Canadians who must have it? If that means we will have a guaranteed annual income, that we will call it welfare and that we have to do whatever we have to do but deal honestly and do it, that is how this debate should be framed and that is what we should be talking about.
However, to put together a program called unemployment insurance which is paying out, as members from the Bloc have pointed out, this year alone about $5 billion more than is being taken in into general revenues, that is nothing more than a tax. That is a top line payroll tax that goes right into the federal treasury which is a job killer of the first magnitude.
Why do I say it is a job killer of the first magnitude? It is because in my past and real life I am an entrepreneur. I have had to live with licence fee increases for the cost of being in business. Unemployment insurance has absolutely diddly squat to do with the profitability of a business. We are not paying these taxes based on how profitable we are. We are paying these taxes based on how many people we employ.
In a certain circumstance where a business is barely hanging on, like that proverbial cod fish on the Grand Banks, by its fingernails, as many small businesses are doing on daily, monthly basis, when the cost of staying in business goes up because the government imposes yet another tax that has nothing whatsoever to do with profitability, what does an employer do?
Employers look at the books and say this will end up costing us $30,000 a year in payroll taxes. For them to get $30,000 a year they will have to increase their sales. If they make a 5 per cent or a10 per cent profit on their bottom line, that means they will have to increase their revenue by 10 times or 20 times to accommodate the increased taxes. In many cases that does not work out to a 1 per cent increase in gross sales but to a dramatic increase in gross sales in order to get enough profit to trickle down to the bottom line in order to pay yet another tax.
What do they do? They do not simply get up in the morning and say "I see my costs have gone up and so I will raise my prices". The trouble is they cannot raise their prices. Most businesses are not suffering from a lack of competition. There is no price elasticity in the vast majority of businesses.
What happens? The only thing that can possibly happen. If their costs have increased by $30,000 they will have to reduce their expenses by $30,000. Can they reduce their rent? No. Can they reduce all the other fixed costs? No. What is the variable? Employees. Another full time job is lost. They could have more part time workers. They are paying the payroll taxes but instead of having a 40 hour work week, everybody will get paid on an hourly basis for the hours they actually work. It is a vicious circle. There will be more part time employment.
That this is not as obvious as the nose on the face of the government is a reflection that the vast majority in this place have never signed a paycheque. They do not have a clue as to how our economy works or why it works. That is what keeps getting us into this mess time after time. To take $5 billion a year out of the economy on a payroll tax so the government can look better on its deficit projections is wrong. It is wrong for the country. It creates a vicious circle. There will be less employment, not more.
How does the current unemployment system work? Will this change anything? Many employees in the system do not look at being on unemployment insurance as a temporary transition measure. It is not considered wrong to use unemployment insurance as a transition method to go from one job to another. If a person does not like their job they will go on pogey until they get a new job.
Employers use the system to lay people off. It is easier to say to someone "we will lay you off. I do not want to fire you and have a confrontation. We will get busier again in the summer. Maybe we will hire you again and maybe we will not".
Unemployment insurance today is misused by employers and employees. People working on a full time basis in a job that does not pay significant income, which encompasses virtually all of the people in the service sector in our country, may find themselves in a catch-22 situation. They may be earning around $15,000 a year and paying unemployment insurance to subsidize those who work on a seasonal basis and may earn $30,000 or $40,000 a year.
If someone is earning on a seasonal basis twice as much as someone working on a full time basis, is it appropriate for the lower paid person to be subsidizing the incomes of those higher paid people? It does not seem right to me. As a matter of fact, it seems kind of dumb to me.
If unemployment insurance were put on the basis that had been envisioned, it would be insurance paid by the employee and a tax on employers. If the premiums reflected the use of the program, that is, the number of times people dipped in and came out of the program and how much they took out of it, it would be the kind of program it was intended to be.
Another concern has been raised by the changes in the bill. How do Canadians who need to get into the employment base get training? Where does the money come from? As it stands, one cannot access programs delivered by UI unless one has an attachment to the labour force. What about all the people who do not
have attachment to the labour force? How do they go about qualifying for these programs?
We have to look at our responsibilities as a nation and figure out how we can best provide entrepreneurs and businesses with a population well educated and highly trained in a diverse range of skills. How best can this be done in harmony with the provinces? How can we address the needs of training, upgrading and the provision of skills to those Canadians most in need?
I speak now specifically of persons with disabilities. They are totally left outside the loop on this. How can they be provided with the tools which will allow them to be trained and retrained in the workforce leading into the 21st century and what will be the nature of the work?
We will have to decide whether we are going to address issues honestly. As the nature of work changes, the skill level required to be able to participate in a meaningful way and to make a good income is going to require consistent change, training and retraining. A good number of workers who through no fault of their own, or through misguided promises by people in political office, will find themselves on the outside looking in.
As we look to the nature of work there will be fewer and fewer people making more and more money. The middle class will continue to erode and there will be a polarization, which is already taking place today, between the haves and the have-nots in our society. It is because of the changing nature of work.
If we accept this premise to be true-there are those who would say that it is not true-then we will have to wrap ourselves around the notion that it is our responsibility to consider ways to ensure a minimum level of income for all Canadians. This would ensure dignity and provide a foundation so the immediately affected generation and future generations would not get caught in the spiral of ever-increasing dependency, of intergenerational dependency on others for their self-respect or their sense of well-being or their daily bread.
We must have a country in which our interdependence is built on a foundation of independence. A foundation of independence cannot be established in a country that fosters the notion of the equality of circumstance.
Our responsibility is to ensure that people have opportunity by providing education and training. It is up to the individual to make use of that education and the training. If individuals are not prepared or are incapable of doing that, then we would not have the equality of circumstance. The thinking of the sixties, no matter how utopian the ideal is, cannot be delivered. It is not honest to suggest that it can be delivered because it cannot. To my knowledge, never in the history of the modern world has any regime been able to deliver on that promise.
I would like to reflect on the importance of this bill and how it made its way through the parliamentary system and on the effect of closure.
Closure may have a more insidious potential in the body politic than just getting legislation through the House or just preventing members from having the opportunity to get on their feet and say a few words about it. It is my opinion that items such as this bill or anything which comes through the ministry that is responsible for this bill, which accounts for the vast proportion of all the discretionary spending on the social side of the envelope, is by far the most important side.
Last week we dealt with Bill C-33 concerning sexual orientation. It was explosive. It was a sad day for many people on both sides of the House. It went through in very short order and now it is over and done with.
However, the legislation we are talking about today really speaks to the kind of society we will have in a pluralistic sense. With this bill and others that come through HRD, we talking about how we can fashion a society that rewards entrepreneurship and initiative, but at the same time looks after those who are less able to look after themselves. That is the measure of a society. The worth of a society is measured by how it looks after the weakest, not the strongest.
As these debates take place we must be cautious of what we are doing. The foundations put down today are the ones that will allow the economy to grow and prosper. It can be done, in my opinion, by ensuring that nothing robs individual Canadians of the responsibility, the ability or the desire to provide for themselves, their children and their future. As a society we should recognize our responsibility to the common good to look after those who need help and make the distinction between wants and needs. We look after those in need. Those in want must look after themselves.
