Mr. Speaker, as several of my colleagues have said again and again today, the purpose of this debate is to ask for the withdrawal of the new Bill C-12, the old Bill C-111.
Why do we ask for this bill to be withdrawn? First, because we feel it penalizes the very victims of the job shortage, that is the unemployed. As described here and as we saw when Bill C-111 was introduced, these measures are a direct attack on the very victims of the lack of jobs.
Since every Canadian did not follow our debates all day long, I will try to summarize these measures in three points. First, there is the eligibility rule invented by the former Minister of Human Resources Development, that is, a total of 910 hours or 26 weeks of work.
As I said, I come from an area where seasonal work is everybody's fate. It is difficult to work for more than 10 or 12 weeks. By the way, I remind the House that it is biology which decides that lobster cannot be fished for more than 10 weeks. Any more than that would deplete the resource. Thus, Mr. Speaker, you will allow me to be surprised that the minister has not addressed this rule yet and said that it must be objected to.
The second rule, which I called the penalty rule in my constituency, concerns the intensity. Anybody who receives unemployment insurance benefits for at least 20 weeks will see his or her benefits reduced by 1 per cent. Every time you receive benefits for 20 weeks, these benefits will be reduced by 1 per cent. This means that in about three years' time, seasonal workers will be denied 5 per cent.
The third point, which always needs to be explained, is the calculation method. The minister proposes to use a fixed basis. When the required number of hours is reached, it will immediately be divided-and this is the calculation method-by 14 weeks.
But it is by 14 weeks within a given period, once you have done your 420 hours. However, it is possible that people have been unable to work within this given period.
What about seasonal workers? If they work in early spring, in April and May in the case of fishing and again in the fall in another type of fishing, the entire summer period would not be included. That means that, once the 420 hours have been reached, the division to determine the value of benefits will have to be by the number of weeks the individual has not worked. This is unacceptable.
For this reason, we feel that this is unacceptable and we ask that this bill be withdrawn.
Why do we have difficulty meeting the objectives set out by the Minister in this area? I said earlier in this House that the premises are all wrong. For us, in our language, reforming the situation of the victims of job shortages means improving it. In this case, as I just said, coming from the new Minister for Human Resources Development, reform means cuts. And this is an indication, an order given to him by the Minister of Finance who, last year, said in his budget that the government wanted a cut of about 10 to 12 per cent-which means a cut of about $1.5 billion dollars which will be passed on to the recipients.
In the meantime, we realize there is a discrepancy as regards to the revenue generated by the UI fund, that is, premiums from workers and employers will generate a surplus of some $5 billion, for this year alone.
You will understand our surprise. Considering the equation I just did, it is clear that the problem is not about a lack of funds. They want to streamline. So to reduce or eliminate the problem, they want to hit those who happen to be the victims over the head.
I would have thought that alternative measures would have been proposed, precisely because UI benefits are dependent upon regional unemployment rates. I would have thought that measures to stimulate employment would have been devised.
The government cannot do here what it blames large companies for doing. In the throne speech, the Prime Minister, who thought he had delivered the goods, admonished big business, telling them: "Now that we are starting to meet our deficit reduction target of 3 per cent of GDP, it is up to businesses to create jobs."
But what are big corporations doing? My colleague from Roberval also mentioned in his address in response to the throne speech that major banks cut around 3,000 jobs, even though they posted record profits of $5 billion. I do not have a detailed list, but it is in that order of magnitude. Bell Canada too made profits and cut workers.
I have nothing against profits, but I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the government, the Minister of Finance cannot put its fiscal house in order as does a corporation, whose sole purpose in life is to generate profits. Here we are dealing with real people who depend on our decisions. The minister must absolutely take this into consideration. We are asking him what will the people deprived of unemployment insurance get in exchange? Nothing.
It is the same in the fisheries sector, and I cannot wait to meet the new Minister of Fisheries. What can the people excluded from this program expect? We are going to ask some people to define what is the core of the fishing sector, that is to say to define who is going to be excluded, who is going to be declared surplus. But what can the excluded people expect? Nothing. The government seems to be reneging on all its social responsibilities, but there is one that it must assume.
On the same point, the minister often tells us that he intends to act in a certain way or is forced to act that way, because of "public opinion in the rest of Canada". The minister comes from Acadia and I come from the Gaspé and he tells me: "Public opinion in the rest of Canada wants me to streamline and cut in these areas". I am sorry, but I think that what most Canadians, like most Quebecers, want is action.
People will not be fooled. They know full well that, with the UI reform which is going on, the minister might, at some point, reduce their UI premiums in a fit of generosity, but that, meanwhile, social assistance budgets will have to be increased and the provinces are the ones that have to pay.
If the provinces are forced to increase their share of taxation, to tax the same people who said they are tired of paying for the unemployed, we are going in circles. Nobody addresses the real issue. We could say that following this policy is like burying one's head in the sand. At some point, we must face the problem et roll up our sleeves.
I took a lot of notes today and I noticed another small point. It seems that the government wants to ram Bill C-12 through. I must remind the House that the former Minister of Human Resources Development has been talking about a reform for more than two years, but it was only before Christmas, just after the referendum, that we began to get an idea on the kind of reform he was considering. The victims, the people directly concerned by this, did not wait long before expressing their opposition.
What is the rush when the minister has taken two years to think about how and where to cut? How is it that everything has to be done between now, in early March, and July 1? Does the minister realize that the unemployed do not have secretaries to defend their position? I believe he is going at this a little too fast.
The minister also talked about sensitivity. I just said that it will be the same people who will be affected if we reduce unemployment insurance premiums, if we reduce deductions which will levied on this, it will the same people who will have to contribute more to their province for social assistance.
I would like, through the House and with your help, to address the people who are fortunate enough to be working today, the directors and owners of businesses. They are fortunate to be working, and I am happy for them. I am asking them to put pressure on the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources Development so that the government uses part of the savings obtained at the expense of the unemployed to stimulate the economy and, above all, to put into practice what it preached after October 30, that is decentralization.
The problems in the Gaspe Peninsula are not quite the same as in Toronto or Montreal. I believe the time has come, in this matter, for the government to start thinking about decentralizing standards or things that will help workers by stimulating their local economy, in the Gaspe or in Acadia. I believe they have to use the right words to say it and the right means to do it.
At present, we do not see that kind of sensitivity. For all these reasons, I support my colleague from Roberval, and I hope that the government will withdraw this bill if it really wants to improve the situation of the unemployed.
