Carla Qualtrough

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, I am sure the member opposite would agree that members of Parliament are uniquely positioned to know the needs and what is going on in their community. They are not alone in this. We also have Service Canada public servants working around the clock, contacting employers to determine if they want to keep offering these jobs or if they would like to amend the job descriptions that they want to offer young people.

We thought it was very important to give members of Parliament, who again are on the ground, the opportunity to work with us to ensure that maybe organizations that historically had not even existed until this crisis had the opportunity to get a 100% wage subsidy for young people for this summer.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, the numbers we are dealing with in this crisis, with respect to EI applications between March 15 and April 6, and CERB combined applications since, are extraordinary. Let me give you some numbers.

Yesterday, April 10, 231,000 people applied for CERB. That includes EI and non-EI eligible. This week alone, it was 3.32 million. Since March 15, 5.85 million Canadians have applied and we have processed 5.26 million of these. Understanding there are still 600,000 applications in the queue, we are working around the clock.

I also offer a shout-out to public servants for their incredible work on this.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, if it is the intent of this Parliament to change the overall criteria of the CERB, that is a legislative requirement. Under the first emergency response legislation there is regulatory power, for lack of a better word, given to me as minister, to make certain classes of workers or types of income exempt from the requirements of the act. That is the provision under which we would be able to, through regulation, exempt seasonal workers.

The other thing is that we have a complementary act through the EI Act, where we could make regulatory changes because seasonal workers are covered under employment insurance.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, we are currently looking at consequences for a number of groups of their ability to meet the eligibility criteria for EI moving forward. I think also of substitute teachers who are not able to get the hours they need now because they are not in schools teaching. We know that while this may seem a little ways off, this is a very pressing issue for Canadians, and we are digging in on it right now.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, an artist who earned more than $5,000 last year and who is no longer earning that money is of course eligible for the Canada emergency response benefit.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, we are working very hard to ensure that this happens in the upcoming days.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, that would be a regulatory change that could be enacted through me, the Minister of Finance and/or the President of the Treasury Board.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, I apologize if I have created any confusion. We are in the process of ensuring that seasonal workers on EI will, in fact, have access to the CERB. Those regulations are not yet in place. Therefore, at this moment they do not, but we are making sure that they will.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, we need to make a change.

There is a regulatory change that needs to happen, and that would, under the first emergency response act, have to be signed off by three of us. We are working hard to make sure that happens quickly.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 11th, 2020]

Mr. Chair, I can assure my colleague that we are working very hard to ensure that seasonal workers have access to the CERB.

We have yet to confirm the details, but we have made that decision. We will include seasonal workers very soon.