Paul Crête

[Old Age Security, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the minister leaves an element of doubt as to whether pensions will indeed be based on family income. Can the minister at least tell Canadians that retirement age will not be raised from 65 to 67 years?

[Old Age Security, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In the speech from the throne delivered on February 27, we read the following, and I quote: "The government will propose to Parliament measures to sustain Canada's elderly benefits system for the future". Yesterday, no less than 18 Quebec associations for seniors opposed the federal government's intention to determine old age pensions based on family income.

Will the Minister of Finance reassure the elderly by confirming that their pension will not be determined by using the family income criterion?

[Speech From The Throne, February 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak in reply to the speech from the throne because, over the past few months, we were able to get in touch with our constituents and finally stock up on the ideas they want us to put across in this House so that Quebec and Canada will be more in line with what the people of Quebec and Canada want.

The first message that was systematically conveyed to me by every person I was able to contact, which is not reflected in the speech from the throne, is to the effect of rejecting the unfair application of the marketplace rules of the road.

In this speech from the throne, there are many instances where the government gives up exercising its duties as a government.

Take the UI reform for example. On this subject, the speech from the throne says that it will go on as scheduled, that this plan to cut $2 billion will go ahead as scheduled, without any changes to the fiscal parameters. This is in direct contradiction with the first few paragraphs of the speech, in which the governor general speaks of the compassion of Canadians. There is a contradiction between what the government is advocating and the objectives we have always pursued in Quebec and in Canada.

How can the government talk about compassion and honouring Canada's traditional values while at the same time requiring, for instance, that any first-time UI claimant have accumulated 910 hours of work? These 910 hours amount to 26, 35-hour weeks of work, but previously, the unemployed needed only work a minimum of 15 hours a week during 20 weeks, or a total of 300 hours, to qualify for unemployment insurance.

The baseline has now been raised to 910 hours. Might as well condemn every young person and anyone working in a seasonal industry to live off welfare for the rest of their lives. This is clearly and simply an incentive to moonlight. This government is systematically encouraging moonlighting.

Another aspect of the speech from the throne that deals with the UI reform and which will certainly prompt members from the Maritimes to jump to their feet and respond has to do with the rule regarding the number of weeks of work. The current UI reform penalizes seasonal workers because they work in seasonal industries. Does the government intend to maintain this type of situation? Will it stick to the principles underlying Bill C-111, or will it do as it is being asked to by everyone, that is withdraw this legislation and start over again, from scratch, and propose a UI reform that truly reflects the values dear to Quebecers and Canadians? Did the government not get the message? Have all MPs from the maritimes not been told by their constituents that this reform was unacceptable, that it did not at all reflect the values of Quebec and Canada?

Old age pensions are another component of social program reform where the government shows no compassion.

The speech from the throne says that it will be necessary to reform the Canada pension plan so as to maintain its viability. The government no longer talks about ensuring the survival of old people through a minimum income that would allow them to have a decent quality of life. Not at all.

The government is only concerned with the plan's viability. Once again, as with the UI reform, the issue becomes strictly a matter of dollars and cents. The government will do to old age pensions what it did to unemployment insurance, that is make the most vulnerable people pay. Is this what a government which is now half-way through its mandate should do? The government should ask itself why it was elected and where it is headed.

The measures proposed in the speech from the throne do not reflect the demands of Quebecers and Canadians in the least.

There is another issue that my constituents keep referring to. They told us that they expected their governments to create jobs. We have to find ways. I will tell you what a worker told me: "We need to find a way of taxing machines." New technologies have transformed the workplace over the last few years and everyone knows that we cannot stop progress, but as these new technologies are being implemented, as eight out of ten jobs disappear, the government has the responsibility to ensure that quick and effective retraining programs are available, especially for unskilled workers. These people must not become the victims of technology. There is no reason why workers should be pushed aside because of technological change.

We must accept technological change, we must make sure that we are competitive, but we must not act in a way that does not respect the human being and the right of each individual to develop his or her full potential and use it for the benefit of society.

I do not see anything along these lines in the speech from the throne. Have you found, in the speech from the throne, things that lead us to believe that the government will give the highest priority to job creation, to the use of workers and to the development of each individual's skills? Have you seen any of that in the speech from the throne? I have found nearly nothing on that subject.

Yesterday, the Minister of Human Resources Development had to give some clarifications on youth employment. The text says that the government will double the number of federal summer student jobs. The minister has since told us that it will not only be in the federal public service, but everywhere.

Should we believe what is in the text or should we believe what the minister says? For now, according to what we see in the speech from the throne, there will be lots of jobs in every area where there are federal departments, and it so happens that there are lots of them in the national capital region.

But will the measure promised in the speech from the throne have the desired result in the areas where federal departments are less present, for example in La Pocatière where the experimental farm has been closed down, where there are fewer and fewer people in the Canada employment centres and where you can count federal employees on your fingers? Never in a million years!

We will get the opposite effect to what we want if we concentrate jobs where they are less needed and allow for fewer of them where they are cruelly needed. The government must correct its range and adjust to what has to be done.

Perhaps the main point that people everywhere mentioned to me is that they want to be respected. There is nothing like that in this speech from the throne. They say to Quebecers: "We are going to control the way you will be consulted on your own future". Quebecers are told that all Canadians will have their say about Quebec's own future; this shows a blatant lack of respect. It proves that they have completely lost touch with the people of Quebec. It shows that they have in no way understood the result of last fall's referendum.

The government must clearly and definitely change its position on that and say unequivocally that it will respect the choice Quebecers made, just as sovereignists did in 1980 and again in 1995; it must recognize that there is a democratic process to be followed and accept the people's choice.

Quebecers have a right to be respected and expect the Canadian government, the Canadian Parliament to do so.

Mr. Speaker, I will continue after question period.

[Petitions, December 11th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on Canada Post signed by 200 constituents of Lac-Saint-Jean, which reads as follows. Whereas the Canada Post Corporation moves home mail boxes around as it sees fit, which forces a number of citizens to use the services of an intermediary to get their mail, we are requesting that Canada Post put an end to its plan to move home delivery mail boxes around as it sees fit, and to respect vested rights to postal services.

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking the same question I asked the minister this morning. He said that there would be 500,000 more contributors to the program. We all know that there will be 500,000 more contributors, but what we want to know is how many of these 500,000 people will ever get benefits.

How many will pay and never benefit from the program? I am very surprised. Many of the questions we would like answers to are like this. Before the referendum, the government did not want to introduce this bill, because it had to be looked at carefully. Today, they are in a great hurry. They want us to pass this legislation on the double.

What is behind this new position of the government?

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my first response to this remark is this, and I think it is important. The member asked me why we have not read the reform proposal from cover to cover, why we do not have all the details.

There is a contradiction between the member and his government. The government has used closure to limit the debate to three hours on Monday. It is muzzling us because it does not want a real debate on this bill at second reading. It is doing that because it wants to hide this reform before the Christmas holidays, so that we will have to go home without having had the time to show Canadians that it is unacceptable.

About the $800 million, it is obvious that it is not $800 million at all since it is just money being transferred from the consolidated revenue fund and the unemployment insurance fund. The government has tried all week to confuse us on this issue, getting quite confused itself in the answers of the various ministers. It is certainly not today that it will succeed in convincing us.

I want to make a last comment. It is simple and obvious. Go back to your ridings to explain to the people that the 910 hour minimum requirement is reasonable. Ask your constituents if they think it is reasonable to require that people who participate in the unemployment insurance program for the first time work a minimum of 910 hours in order to become eligible. You will all come back with the same answer after the Christmas break, or maybe even next week.

Is it reasonable to require that these new workers-I am talking about our young people, about women who enter the job market, about immigrants who come to Canada-work a minimum of 910 hours when the previous requirement was 300 hours and when the highest requirement for people who are already contributing to the program is 700 hours? Is it reasonable to impose a 910 hour minimum requirement to those people to whom we claim to want to give an incentive to work, when it is obvious that this kind of measure will do exactly the opposite? We will see within a year that a vast majority of people will be discouraged. This will stimulate the underground economy and force Canadians onto welfare.

If the government has not understood that, it will have to make some adjustments; otherwise it will have to face a lot of angry people. As Gilles Vigneault once said, "it will have quite a storm on its hands".

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, as I begin my speech, and considering previous comments, perhaps it would be wise to repeat the text of the motion before the House today. The hon. member for Mercier moved:

That this House denounce the government for its massive cuts to the unemployment insurance system that limit access to the program and hit young people, women, seasonal workers and immigrants hard.

The word Quebec does not appear in this motion. The motion clearly includes all Quebecers and Canadians, especially the people in the Maritimes, and I will get back to that in a moment.

First, I also want to say that my comments today also reflect the results of consultations I have conducted since last Friday in the form of a series of conferences, including three telephone conferences, mostly with people from my riding in the Gaspé. There is a consensus that emerges from these consultations which, in addition to the unions and workers, included employers, members of the Chambers of Commerce and people from all walks of life.

Several aspects of the reform proposal have their merits. For instance, the fact that low-income families will have a chance to get higher benefits. However, there are major aspects that need changing, and they are part of the consensus I will share with you.

First, the requirement of 910 hours of work for first-time contributors to the unemployment insurance plan. Previously, to be eligible, the maximum requirement for a first-time contributor was 20 weeks, 15 hours per week, which adds up to 300 hours.

Applying the same principle to these proposals, the government could have said 700 hours, the maximum for regions where the unemployment rate is not as high. But that is not what they did. They set the maximum at 910 hours, to be eligible for the plan.

This means that someone who works 35 hours a week will have to work 26 weeks full time to be eligible, and this means in one year. If the following year you are back to square one, this means, as it says in our motion, young people and women-because in most cases women or young people who enter the labour market will be hit hard by this measure-seasonal workers, plus those who arrive on the labour market and immigrants getting their first job in Canada will all be affected.

What was the rationale for setting this number of hours? How could Liberal members, elected on a platform that stressed jobs, have done that? The best way to get someone a job is to give him an incentive to work. The proposed system will ensure that people who have worked 600, 700 or 800 hours will have to go on welfare as a matter of course. That is not a big incentive to work.

I think something should have been included to give people a taste for better benefits, something worthwhile. So, in addition to not providing any job creation program with the choices it made, and not proposing a way to transform regional economies, the government is waving a stick and telling workers they will have to work 910 hours; that is the way it will get them working longer. But first there have to be jobs.

I think our motion constructively criticizes this position, and the government will have to fix up its requirement of 910 hours. This is the consensus of the people in a region such as eastern Quebec. Why? Because it will lead to an exodus of young people as well. It will swell the numbers of young people who have been leaving over the past 10 or 15 years.

If somebody works 12 thirty-five hour weeks, he will have 700 hours. He will be short 210 hours, but there is no work in his region. Where is he going to find work? He will have to move to a major centre. This will reduce the regional economy in a number of sectors.

This measure severely punishes the regions, it is backward looking and must be withdrawn.

Another point we agree on is the need to eliminate the penalty against seasonal workers. Give me one reason why employment in a seasonal industry, such as forestry, fishing or tourism, should result in punishment for the worker whose benefits will be reduced according to his use of the unemployment insurance plan?

Why is it this way when it is not the case for workers in an industry that is not seasonal? This, to me, is totally unacceptable. I see it as rather an insult to Canada's regions as well, although their development of seasonal industry has been praised. Their contribution to the Canadian economy is readily accepted, and then, suddenly, the rules are changed and the people penalized and no job creation adjustment program is provided.

This leaves a group of very perplexed members, including the Liberal members for the maritimes, members such as those from St. John's East, Annapolis Valley-Hants, Madawaska-Victoria, Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine in Quebec, all those who come from ridings hit hard by this policy, which offers no remedy to change the situation. I am willing to bet that, when the policy is reviewed in three years, as provided for in the legislation, it will be assessed as having a disastrous impact because there was no program to revitalize the economy of these regions as they were being penalized.

It will have taken three more years to arrive at the same result. I think we might as well correct the situation right away.

I would like to show you what this will mean for people, not in theory but in real life. Someone who works 12 weeks at an average salary of $500 a week can now receive benefits equal to 55 per cent of his or her salary, or $275.

Under the new program, this person will have to work more hours per week for a longer period in order to qualify for benefits that will drop from $275 a week to $214. We in this House make good money. If our pay cheques were reduced by $50, it would not be so bad, we might be able to live with it. However, if someone's earnings fell from $275 a week to $214, he would wonder how he could feed his children every day of the month.

This kind of money is on a par with welfare. You think this is an incentive to work? This is totally unacceptable and I think that the government should use the time when the bill is in committee to correct these problems. The people affected should be able to tell the government what it means in real life to go from $275 a week to $214, to make the government understand how the bill would affect them in real life.

Especially since, with the reduction in the number of weeks of work required to qualify for UI, the end of the tunnel is welfare. What a great incentive.

My arguments are not only those of someone from eastern Quebec. It concerns everyone in Quebec and Canada. Away from the centre every area will be affected by this and confronted to it. We must all join in condemning this government proposal and in seeing to it that changes are made.

We could assume that, perhaps, the government had no choice but to go about it this way. Perhaps there are financial constraints holding it back. But now this: a lower limit. It makes no sense. In the past, the contribution limit was $42,000 in salary. In the future, the limit will be $39,000. This means that high paid workers, the higher middle class and high paid workers will be contributing-listen to this-$900 million less to the UI fund.

This government claimed to be here to create jobs and help the jobless and those whose skills were not adequate for the labour market to find a job. So what did the government do? In its reform, one of its most regressive initiatives, it lowers the ceiling and, as a result, high paid workers will be contributing $900 million less to the plan.

Do you know where the government will take the missing $900 million? In the pockets of new contributors, those who did not make contributions before, who will now have to work for 910 hours to qualify for benefits but who, while making contributions, if they work ten hours a week during 50 weeks, for a total of 500 hours in the year, will not be refunded fully.

These measures are unacceptable. The UI program may be in need of a reform. It might have been a good idea to set up an employment insurance system. The problem is that the government gave a nice label to a reform that only seeks to make cuts and help reduce the deficit. We are still wondering: if this is the contribution of UI claimants to help reduce the deficit, then what will others be made to contribute? What will be the Royal Bank's contribution, considering it made one billion dollars in profits last year. One billion is more than small change. It is more than the difference between weekly UI benefits of $275 and $214.

The government will have to show that it is also going to get money from those people. In the meantime, it must amend its reform and it must do so urgently. One wonders what prevented the government from introducing, before its reform or at least at the same time, a job creation policy or a regional economic diversification initiative. What prevented the government from showing people that it was going to take positive measures to ensure that regions such as eastern Quebec can get on the new technology express and fully adjust. Why did the current government not take such action?

Why is it bent on targeting only the most vulnerable people? It would have been nice to hear something like: "As regards our young people, we will, in certain regions, set up job creation programs that will allow them to gain a first year of solid experience, to develop their entrepreneurship, and to see if they want to become entrepreneurs".

Let us look at one of the five aspects of job creation dealing with self-employed workers. Basically, it is a very good program permitting someone on UI to start a business. Interesting experiments have been tried under this program. But now, with the 910 hour requirement for first time applicants, a lot of people are going to be left out in the cold. But, if these people were eligible to UI, they could put forward a business plan, start their own business and eventually take some pressure off the unemployment insurance system instead of remaining dependent on it.

It seems to me that this reform lacks originality, initiative, and the new ideas which might have been put on the table and which we would have hoped to see in here, especially after nearly two years of consultation. This is another part of the reform that should scrutinized.

Lat year, I toured Canada with the human resources committee. We went across Canada to find out what kind of reform people wanted. Nowhere did I hear: "The number of hours to become eligible to UI benefits should be increased, seasonal worker benefits should be diminished". Nowhere in Canada did I hear this kind of thing.

However, I was told, for example: "True, there might be some economic problems in certain areas; some things have to be fixed, and we must be given the means to do it". But, do not present us with a fait accompli, as the government is doing.

What kind of effect is this going to have on regional economy? Take the Maritimes, for example; those of you who represent ridings in Atlantic Canada, figure it out: three years from now, all your seasonal workers will be down to 50 per cent only. They speak in terms of 20-week periods. A 20-week period does not mean a reduction of one per cent a year, it means a reduction of one per cent of the salary each time one receives unemployment insurance benefits for 20 weeks. Therefore, in three years, there will be 5 per cent less benefits paid in the regions.

The spinoffs of that will not be job creation but quite the opposite. When jobs are created, another more convenience store opens somewhere and another service job is offered to someone. But these cuts produce the opposite. There will be less money in our economy so there will be less jobs of that kind, there will be more people on welfare, through one program or another, and more people will leave the region.

Instead of breaking the vicious circle that leads to an exodus from the regions, measures like this will tighten it and the result will the opposite of what is expected. This reminds me of the disheartening experience I had last year somewhere in Newfoundland, in an employment centre, where I found a document in a

display case. It was a Human Resources Development Canada document that encouraged people to move, to give up and to go live somewhere else. That does not ensure the future of a country, be it Quebec or Canada. A healthy country is one which capitalizes on its resources and develops them and one which gives recognition to people who work.

If seasonal workers are blamed for the situation their industry is in and for the fact that they cannot work for a longer period, the mid term consequence will be a lack of manpower in part time industries. The tourist industry already has that kind of problem. I can tell you the new plan will only make it worse and will further widen the incredible gap we have between available jobs and unemployed workers who do not have the skills and training to fill those jobs. The hon. member for Mercier has moved the motion before us because of this whole reform.

The government, through massive UI cuts, limits access to the program and sets goals that are the very opposite of those we should have in a society such as ours and our society should be judged by, that is the best use possible of its human resources.

The present Liberal government perpetuates the ways of the previous government it ousted. People voted for change, but the government has fallen back into the same old ways. It is high time you woke up, and swept out the bureaucrats that come up with such proposals for cabinet. You have to get rid of them, because the current government will be judged not necessarily on the way the richer people are allowed to prosper and the more talented are allowed to perform, but rather on the way it ensures that society reaches its full potential, that all Canadians can make a useful contribution and be proud of what they are doing in building something worthwhile together.

If you continue to penalize the people in this way, you will achieve the exact opposite of what you are looking for.

I challenge the government to let the Standing Committee on Human Resource Development travel to Atlantic Canada and throughout Canada, even to the large urban areas, to talk to the people and realize that seasonal workers are not the only ones who will be affected by the decrease in benefits. The government has now decided to clip the wings of the workers who in the 20 to 30 year age group and who have not had the opportunities that we have had, and that is totally unacceptable.

So, if the government wants to check if its reform makes a lot of sense and if it does not believe the points I just made, it only has to talk to the people to find out what they think. You will see that it will come back with a totally different reform than the one now before the House.

I hope that the Liberal government will take advantage of the holiday season to reflect on this, propose changes and ensure that Quebecers and Canadians can continue to be proud of the balance between the citizens, and realize that the future does not depend on development in big cities, on a lower unemployment rate in Montreal and Toronto, but on the premise that Canadians and their families from sea to sea to sea are satisfied and happy with what they are contributing to.

I think the government has tabled something that needs to be reviewed. That is why the House should condemn the government for its cuts to the unemployment insurance program. This should be in particular the responsibility of the members, who might have reviewed the reform a little in their caucus and may have had the time to express some points. Today, we will see if the members, especially those from the Maritimes, stand for the Liberal Party or for the people they represent.

[Supply, December 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to comment on the minister's speech and, in particular, on his statement that 97 per cent rather than 93 per cent of workers will be eligible for the plan.

The Bloc has never said it did not want people to be eligible for the plan. We have always said that unemployment insurance should be one of the tools for creating employment. The government has not offered any other, this reform is its only tool. I think some other tools are missing.

There may indeed be more people paying into the plan, but I would like to know from the minister whether he has had estimates made of the number of new contributors who will be able to benefit from the plan. For people in the regions, where work is seasonal, working 910 hours in a year means working 26 weeks at 35 hours a week.

Even if all the hours are counted, even if people sometimes work a 40 hour week, it will be very hard and will result in an exodus of young people. This will mean that many people will remain on welfare. What I have understood from the reform is that people will have a year to accumulate their 910 hours. The next year, it starts all over again, and we begin at zero. So, there are many people who today are getting unemployment insurance, because their job afforded them between 300 and 400 hours. Now they will have to do 910 hours before they are entitled to unemployment insurance benefits.

In my opinion, this will mean the following: people who work 12 or 13 weeks in the summer at 35 hours a week will end up with some 400 hours and then will have to leave the region to come up with the other 500 hours. They will have to look for jobs elsewhere.

Over three, four or five years this will reduce the population in the region. This is a negative aspect of the reform.

We are not saying unemployment insurance should not be reformed, we are saying that 910 hours is far too much for someone new to the system to accumulate right off in order to be entitled to benefits, it is inappropriate for our economy.

There is one other point I would like to raise. When the minister terms it an equitable reform, how can he say it is equitable for seasonal workers when their benefits will drop from 55 per cent to 50 per cent after about three years, when they will have used up the 100 weeks after which the reduction kicks in? The people affected, therefore, are in seasonal industries, a sector where, through no fault of their own, they have to be on unemployment insurance year after year. They are not guilty of anything, so why must they be penalized? These are people who work in industries with 12, 13, 14, 15 weeks of work a year. They cannot invent more work than that.

So they are being told their benefits will be cut down to 50 per cent. After three years, they will be down to 50 per cent, and for no other reason except to penalize them and push them into other sectors where they do not necessarily have any expertise. Where is the other side of the coin, the assurance that there will be changes in their regional economy?

Last year, everywhere we went with the Human Resources Committee the people in the regions said they were not opposed to change. They said they wanted assurance that there would be set transitional periods, possibilities of adjusting the economy, of bringing in aspects from new technology, all those things.

But today, instead of a carrot and stick approach, only the stick has been brought out, with no carrot anywhere in sight. There is no sign from anyone in this government, particularly not the Minister of Industry, whose vision of the economy is a century behind the times. There is no vision here of what the positive aspects will be.

I would therefore ask the minister to tell us what percentage of those now under the plan will be eligible under the new arrangements, and what percentage will never be eligible because it will be impossible for them to accumulate 910 hours at any time in their working lives. I feel that this is an important question, because making it so that more people contribute may be very attractive from a budget point of view, but from the human point of view it is equally important to see that people will have enough to live on.

[Unemployment Insurance Reform, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the other half of the equation is that the minister is taking money from people who were not contributing before. Will the minister recognize that it is unfair to have high income earners pay lower UI premiums, while part time workers who put in less than ten hours per week will now have to pay premiums, even though they will not be eligible to collect UI benefits?

[Unemployment Insurance Reform, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Human Resources Development. By lowering the maximum insurable earnings, the government is making its most significant tax reduction, that is $900 million, to the benefit of high income earners. At the same time, it is reducing the benefits paid to seasonal workers while collecting premiums from workers who hold precarious jobs.

Will the minister admit that, contrary to his claim that this reform is fair, the new proposed system is regressive and unfair, in that it gives some of the benefits taken away from the poor to those who have stable and well paid jobs?