Bob Nault

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not mind a bit of rhetoric here and there but I do not think it is politically acceptable or parliamentary language to say that members on this side are being deceitful. That is not parliamentary language, nor is it acceptable.

I have never used that kind of language, nor do I think it is acceptable for the member to do that. I would appreciate if he would withdraw.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, the Reform Party does not tell Canadians that on top of the 10% contribution rate that Chileans pay, they must pay another 3% points for administration fees and other benefits. Reformers also do not tell Canadians that a private pension system such as Chile's has a much higher cost than public pensions.

Investment costs will be much lower under CPP, one-tenth of one per cent compared to two per cent for RRSPs. That is the real issue.

The other one that really concerns me the most about this is that they do not tell present day seniors in Canada, if they were to wrap up our pension plan how they would deal with the millions of people who are already on pensions. I think we have a right to know that before they go any further.

As I said, Chile is the worst example could use. There is not one solid G-7 country that would even consider this plan, never mind Canada.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I am quite aware of the Chilean experience. I want to relate to the House and to people at home a bit about the Chilean experience. The member opposite keeps using it. He should do his party a favour and stop doing that because if Canadians knew the Chilean experience, they would be amazed that the Reform Party cannot find a better solution or a better example than that. Let me give some facts about the Chilean experience.

Chile privatized its public pension some time ago, about 20 years ago. The original plan was in complete disarray. There were over 30 plans in place when it went to its super RRSP kind of system. There was little similarity between ours and Chile's. That is why I am confused as to why the member would even want to use it as an example because we cannot compare the two.

High inflation was seriously eroding the value of the benefits. Only a few groups with political and economic power received generous benefits. By contrast, the CPP is portable and nearly universal. Everyone receives a fair pension. It includes disability and survivor benefits and is fully indexed. There is a big difference between ours and Chile's.

The following is the really interesting part. When the new pension regime came in in Chile, Chile passed a government decree making all employers raise their wages by 18% to soften the impact of higher contributions.

I do not know why this member continues to suggest that this is a good example of why Canada should go to Chile's example. Please, on behalf of the Reform Party and a few members in my riding who would like the member to represent them properly, find a better example. He is hurting his chances of ever getting elected by using a silly argument like that when we know Canada pension plans and universal pension plans are much better. I hate to see Reform drop to zero in my riding because we would like to keep it alive just a bit.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, now that we have that cleared up, as I was saying, the Canada pension plan is about protecting today's seniors and about ensuring that we in the baby boom generation pay our fair share toward the Canada pension plan.

It is about handing down a viable public pension system to our children and grandchildren. It is about a society that believes we have an obligation to use our national wealth to look after one another and ensure the dignity of each and every citizen.

I am proud to be part of a government that shares those values and I am proud to support this incredibly important piece of legislation.

While the Canada pension plan has been a major success story, we recognize that changes are necessary in order to keep up with the changing world. We are well aware of the challenges facing the Canada pension plan. I think it is obvious to Canadians, but let me reiterate what they are; an aging society and the prospect of telling our children to pay almost three times as much as we do for the same benefits. Obviously, the demographic problems have been there for a number of years.

We just heard the leader of the fifth party speak of what a nasty government the Liberal government is for bringing forward these changes. Well, the reason we are bringing these changes is because the Conservative government in previous Parliaments, and one that I sat in 1988 to 1993, knew of the issues and the problems we were facing and yet nothing was done.

As members of the House and as a government, we decided that it was time to engage and consult with Canadians, and that is exactly what we have done. The message that Canadians gave us was loud and clear. Canadians told us to preserve the Canada pension plan as a public and universal retirement income plan.

They told us to leave the standard retirement age at 65. They told us to preserve disability benefits. They told us not to penalize people who leave the workforce for a time to care for their families or to upgrade their education. They told us to make better investment decisions and increase the return on the CPP fund. They also told us to protect people already in the system.

I am proud to stand here today and tell my constituents that we have delivered. The legislation before us today meets the priorities expressed by Canadians and the agreement on the Canada pension plan means that the public pension plan will be preserved for future generations. It means that seniors will continue to benefit from a secure and guaranteed source of income. It also means that as a baby boomer, I am not telling my young children to pay more and more to support me in my retirement.

This is the emphasis that we wanted to make in the House today and this is the emphasis that was placed in the negotiations and discussions that we had with the provinces.

It is important that the people at home are aware that these changes that are being made to the Canada pension plan are not being made by the Government of Canada alone. It is in fact an agreement with all of the provinces. In order to achieve a major agreement of this kind, the Canada pension plan requires the agreement of at least seven provinces.

In order to be able to stand here and talk about the Canada pension plan changes today, we were able to obtain the agreement of eight provinces as well as one territory. As members know about federal-provincial relations, that in itself shows the tremendous support that Canadians have for their public pension plan and the tremendous support that all levels of government of various political stripes place on preserving the Canada pension plan.

In other words, most representatives of the people believe in and are committed to the Canada pension plan. I realize that some of my colleagues across the floor are ignoring their constituents on this, but I will come back to that.

Beyond the historic achievement of reaching an agreement between us and so many levels of government, what have we accomplished? We have ensured stable and secure funding for the CPP. Yes, contributions will rise to 9.9%. However, that is a lot better than the 14% that we would have to pay to make this pension plan and the rate stable over the long period.

Increased contributions will allow us to build a large reserve fund and instead of lending it to the provinces at a bargain basement rate, a professional and independent management board will invest the funds in order to maximize returns.

I want to return a little bit to what the opposition is saying in the House. It is important to note, if I can, that the Tories did nothing. In fact, if they would have done something between 1984 and 1993, we would not be standing here having to talk about it. As a matter of fact, I sat on one of those committees between 1988 and 1993 where we reviewed what the Canada pension plan needed to have done to it and the Tories basically decided to do nothing because they were afraid of the political consequences.

We now go to the Reform Party. The Reform Party calls our CPP proposal a tax grab. What it does not tell Canadians is that its scheme would cost individuals even more. What it does not tell Canadians is that its scheme would eliminate disability benefits and that it would penalize people who temporarily leave the workplace to care for their children.

The opposition does not tell us that its system would leave each and every Canadian completely at the mercy of the stock market. One bad year at the age of 64 and all of a sudden your savings are all gone.

Most shameful of all of the opposition's rhetoric on this is that it has not told us how it would cover the cost of benefits of current seniors as well as the outstanding liabilities for contributions people have already made. That is the problem we have with the opposition. If the opposition wants to criticize that is perfectly legitimate. That is what oppositions are intended to do.

However, it is not to suggest that what we are offering Canadians is a lot worse than what they are suggesting when in fact we know the opposite is totally unacceptable.

This change and improvement in the Canada pension plan in making the contribution rates stable for years to come is going to be one of the most defining moments in this government's mandate. It is also going to be one of the most defining moments for young Canadians. As a young parent myself, I think it is important for us to realize, if we look at the billions of dollars that we are going to be saving young people in the long run by fast tracking the premium increases now, we are doing the future generations a big favour by what we are doing today.

I want to emphasize again in closing that we on this side of the House take this very seriously and we are very pleased to see that this issue is finally behind us and we can carry on with other improvements to the values that we so cherish.

[Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act, December 4th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak in support of Bill C-2. It is one of the most important social policy initiatives of the last several years.

Since a Liberal government established the Canada pension plan a generation ago, it has become a cornerstone of our retirement income system. The CPP has contributed greatly to seniors' dignity and independence and has helped us drastically reduce poverty among seniors.

The CPP is also symbolic of the kind of society we as Canadians have built, a society where we encourage individual effort but strive to use our national wealth to ensure a basic standard of living for all.

The legislation before us today represents values, not just the values of the Liberal government which introduced the bill, but more important, the values that Canadians from coast to coast to coast embrace. It is about protecting today's seniors. It is about ensuring that we in the baby boom generation pay our fair share toward the Canada pension plan. It is about handing down a viable public pension system to our children and grandchildren.

[Employment, October 31st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, in 1993 we inherited a $42 billion Conservative deficit. By next year the budget will be balanced.

What does this mean for Canadians? It means we can relieve some of the burden off the shoulders of our children and grandchildren by paying down the debt. It means we can start to reinvest in those areas of economic and social policies that mean so much to Canadians like job creation, education and health.

If the forecasters are right, it has placed Canada in the enviable position of leading the G-7 countries in growth. It has created an environment for jobs. There have been a million created during our first mandate, and over one-quarter million this year alone, and young people are filling more jobs than they have filled in nearly a decade.

That is a record to be proud of. In sum, we have put an end to crushing interest rates, we have slain the deficit and have begun to pay down the debt. More important, jobs and hope are being restored to Canadians.

The deficit fight is best measured by its human factor. Numbers are abstract, jobs are real. What a difference four years makes.

[Newfoundland Unemployment, October 30th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, the motion we are debating asks the government to spend resources to study the employment problem in Newfoundland and Labrador. I want to read it again so the people who are watching understand what the motion is intended to do.

That, in the opinion of this House, a special committee should be established to study the severe unemployment problem in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I would like to assure the member that the government is aware of this very serious issue and recognizes the need for long term structural solutions. I do not think that anybody on this side of the House would contest the fact that we need to pay serious attention to regional disparity.

Historically my party has been the one to most seriously address many of the regional problems that the member would have us examine.

Earlier studies led us to employment insurance reform, the first major reform in 25 years. We knew that we had to have more in the way of active support for work. We knew that we needed to invest in people who have invested in themselves. We knew that helping Canadians back to work was the only solution to problems of Atlantic Canada and that is what the employment insurance reform sets out to do.

While I am in favour of understanding a problem before leaping into it, there is a time for study and a time for action. The government believes the time for action is now. We are doing it in a partnership with the provincial government.

Over the last 10 years many studies, both comprehensive and specific, have examined the unemployment situation in Newfoundland and Labrador. One example, and the member mentioned it, a royal commission of the Government of Newfoundland, known as the House Commission, looked at the problem in the late 1980s. This led to a comprehensive analysis of the province's economic position and became the basis of the province's strategic economic plan. That plan is still being put into practice.

Today I want to talk about some of the things we have done to make the problem better. From everything I have seen the people in the member's riding are probably more interested in our solutions than our ability to talk more about their problems. Rather than revisit the whole issue again we want to better use our resources to help the people of Newfoundland and Labrador get back to work. That is why in 1997-98 the government will invest $89 million in active employment measures for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Here we are talking about targeted earning supplements, targeted wage subsidies, job creation partnerships, self-employment assistance and skills, loans and grants. But we have also learned that it is more important than ever for us to work even more closely with the provinces.

Thanks to the labour market development agreement we signed with the province, both levels of government will co-manage the programs that will get Newfoundlanders working again. The agreement means made in Newfoundland solutions that are tailored to the particular circumstances that characterize the Newfoundland economy. This kind of partnership recognizes that each side has something to offer and that no solution is really possible unless both levels of government work together.

One of the components of employment insurance reform is working especially well. We have heard a little bit of it in the House, but I want to mention it. The program that we launched, called the transitional jobs fund, of some $300 million in July 1996, is now starting to have an effect in Newfoundland and Labrador. That fund works with the private sector and with the provincial and municipal governments, as well as with community groups.

Like the labour market development agreement, the fund works because it is based on partnership. As of October 14, that transitional jobs fund had provided $26 million to 70 projects in Newfoundland and Labrador. That money leveraged another $85 million.

The question that is always asked in this place is, did all that money create jobs? You bet it did. So far, the transitional jobs fund has created some 2,016 new jobs in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Let us take just one example so we can put it in people terms when we talk about the 2,016 people who have found new employment because of the transitional jobs fund. Let us start by talking about the Millennium Diagnostic Services. We have helped create 46 permanent full time jobs there. Some of those people probably live in the member's riding. Millennium is setting up a private sector blood testing facility. This facility will provide services to the Canadian Blood Bank Corporation and has big export plans. Even more jobs will probably be created in the future.

We are not talking about make work either. We are talking about medical personnel, lab technicians and support personnel, exactly the sort of people that Newfoundland needs in a high tech world. Those are well paying jobs.

I could go on because there are a number of different issues we could put together, but I do not want to spend a lot of time on the success stories. I want to talk about where we need to go in the future.

The other successful program is the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. As of 1996, the agency reported that it had created or saved 82,000 full time long term jobs. The premise of the member's motion suggests that the government of Canada does not know which way to turn, but the evidence says otherwise.

The 46 people in St. John's who got the new jobs, or what is going on with the other 2,016, or the 82,000 that we have saved, tell this House that the problem is no longer just finding data, the problem is finding jobs. We are not interested in waiting any more. We have the information we need and we will only conduct new studies on specific issues as they arise.

For example, Mr. Eugene Harrigan, the associate head of human resources development's Ontario region, will lead a review of the impact of the end of the Atlantic groundfish strategy on program clients, their communities and provincial finances. This will help the government and our partners to develop forward looking solutions.

We have programs that are working and we have results. Things are happening. Now that we are working more closely than ever with the province, even better things will start to happen.

In the short time that I have, I have given the House concrete examples of how real people at real companies are being put back to work. I want to thank those people in the programs who are trying to help depressed areas like Newfoundland and Labrador. I want to emphasize that we are on the right track. People have to be patient and give those programs an opportunity to work.

[Employment Insurance, October 24th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, the first thing I would ask the hon. member to consider is that if we adopted his motion it would not give due consideration to all the hard work that has gone into restructuring the system and the positive approach in helping unemployed Canadians that other members and myself were involved with in the last session.

When the government set out to redesign the way in which we helped unemployed workers get back to work, we made a dramatic shift from passive assistance to active measures that would act as an incentive for individuals to return to the workforce as soon as possible.

The new system is not yet 16 months old. Most reasonable people would agree that it is not long enough to determine how effective it is going to be.

I will now address some specific points in the hon. member's motion. He is asking the government to lower premium contributions. In 1994 the government took action to stop rates from increasing, setting the rate that year at $3.07 instead of the scheduled $3.30. Since 1995 premium rates have declined each year. They are now at $2.90 for every $100 of insurable earnings and the government is committed to bringing the rate down even further.

As for weekly maximum insurable earnings, we rolled them back to $750 and froze them at that level rather than allowing them to increase to $875 as they were scheduled to do. But we did not stop there.

Is the hon. member familiar with the new hires program? Under that program up to 900,000 employers are eligible to pay virtually no premiums for jobs they create this year.

Combine these three measures and the government is saving workers and employers $1.7 billion in payroll taxes in 1997. By anybody's arithmetic, those are substantial savings to both employers and employees.

The hon. member is asking the government to improve benefits for seasonal workers and new entrants and re-entrants. First let us consider seasonal workers.

When the old UI system was reformed, the government was determined to make the new system more flexible to accommodate changing conditions in the workplace. Those changes included improvements in the way benefits are calculated for seasonal workers.

With EI we have an hours based system. That hours based system enables an additional 45,000 workers in seasonal industries to qualify for benefits they would not have qualified for under the old system.

Because of the hours based system some 270,000 seasonal workers are eligible for an average of three additional weeks of EI benefits. For families with children whose incomes are under $26,000, the family income supplement assists them financially. By the year 2000 their EI benefits may be as high as 80% of their insured earnings.

Furthermore, an $800 million annual reinvestment in employment benefits by the year 2000 will help workers in seasonal industries extend their regular season or find work in the off season. Besides that, the government has a very active $300 million transitional jobs fund to help create sustainable employment in areas of high unemployment.

Let me give the House some statistics for those who are interested in the transitional jobs fund. So far more than 400 projects have been approved. We have spent $150 million on TJF. Some 20,000 new jobs have been created due to this program and some $1.3 billion has been leveraged by the private sector because of this fund.

Anyone who has been involved in this fund in high unemployment areas, such as my area of northern Ontario, can attest to the fact that this is a very creative program which will create sustainable employment. It is being used. The significance of this program is that it has also been agreed to by the provinces, by members of Parliament, by non-profit organizations, all working together in their regions to create sustainable employment.

At the same time the government recognized the issue of so-called small weeks, that is, weeks in which a worker earns less than $150. There was a disincentive, which we recognized, for some workers to accept these small weeks of work because it would lower their benefits.

A major objective of the new EI program is to encourage people to accept available employment. The government brought in adjustment projects which target 29 high unemployment regions across Canada, including the introduction of projects in the hon. member's province of Quebec. Over three years these projects will return an estimated $247 million in EI benefits to workers in the 29 regions.

We will continue to monitor the impact of the new system on seasonal workers so appropriate adjustments can be made, but it is far too early to start tinkering with the program.

As for new entrants and re-entrants, yes, the requirements are higher. There is a very good reason for that. Higher entrance requirements ensure that workers who qualify for benefits establish a solid attachment to the labour force before receiving benefits.

One of the big problems under the old system was that people became dependent on UI. Some people used it to supplement their income and there is evidence that some young people left school early so they could collect income benefits. I am sure the hon. member would not want to create that kind of incentive for young Canadians.

Under EI higher entrance requirements will reduce the chance of workers, especially young workers, from developing a dependency on the system early in their work life.

The government has a number of programs under the youth employment strategy to help young Canadians make a successful transition from school to work. As was announced in the Speech from the Throne, we intend to take further measures to reduce barriers to post-secondary education. As well, we will work with our provincial and private sector partners to ensure that young men and women develop the skills necessary to thrive in the emerging knowledge based economy.

At the same time, we are not unaware that more women than men are re-entrants to the workforce. We have implemented special measures to help ease the effect of higher entrance requirements on women.

Let us take the case of a woman re-entering the workforce who has collected maternity or parental benefits in the last five years. To mitigate the impact of higher entrance requirements, this individual has access to EI's active employment measures, measures that will help or make a more stable attachment to the labour market.

As I mentioned earlier with regard to seasonal workers, about 350,00 low income claimants, two-thirds of whom are women, are eligible for the family income supplement. And benefits for low income, single parent families headed by women will increase, as we all know, in these new changes by 13%.

Is it not fair that we have helped women who are at the low end of the income scale by increasing their benefits by 13%? Obviously, that is never mentioned by members opposite.

In closing, I would remind the hon. member that the transformation from UI to employment insurance was the most massive overhaul of the program in 25 years. Part of that overhaul was a commitment by the government to monitor and assess the impact of the changes.

That process is currently under way. As required under the Employment Insurance Act, early in 1998 the minister will report to Parliament on just how well the new system is working.

I believe the new EI system deserves a fair trial period. For that reason, I am opposed to the hon. member's motion and I think we should give change a chance to take place.

[Employment Insurance, October 24th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate the hon. member's motion.

[Human Resources, October 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important subject.

We have been accused on many occasions that the task forces and groups we have put together have no impact.

The task force on disabilities recommended certain things. We have now enacted $30 million annually in the opportunities fund announced in the 1997 budget. Tax assistance increased to a total of $70 million annually.

At the recent ministers meeting of the Council on Social Policy Renewal, a new initiative called employability assistance to people with disabilities was put in place. Those are the kinds of initiatives that we think the government and this—