Irene Mathyssen

[Employment Insurance Act, May 11th, 2012]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-422, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (elimination of waiting period).

Mr. Speaker, this is a private member's bill that amends the Employment Insurance Act to eliminate that two-week waiting period.

As we all know, young families suffer incredibly when they lose the job that sustains them. It is very traumatic. Low-wage single-parent families live from paycheque to paycheque. Therefore, the point of this bill is to make sure that those interminable two weeks are eliminated, because that waiting period can indeed put a great strain on any family.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Employment, May 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, fewer Canadians than ever can access EI under the Conservatives. The government should hang its head in shame, but it gets worse. Now the minister is giving herself exclusive powers to force unemployed professionals to take unskilled jobs or pushing unemployed fishers to take construction jobs. The minister gives no explanation or justification but barrels ahead with these sweeping changes.

Why does the minister think she should have the power to decide what is suitable employment for anyone?

[Employment, May 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, hiding changes in the budget to avoid accountability is simply wrong. Another hidden change: cutting employment insurance and gutting the appeals tribunal. Instead of separate tribunals with dedicated staff, we now have one big tribunal with a fraction of the staff. Asking 70 staff to review over 30,000 appeals is not going to make the system efficient. It will grind it to a halt and the government knows it.

Why is the minister using these underhanded tactics to cut services for Canadians?

[Mother's Day, May 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to commemorate Mother's Day and the strong, beautiful women who are our mothers, aunties, sisters, grandmothers and daughters.

Mother's Day was started by a woman who wished to honour her mother, a peace activist, at the turn of the 20th century. Ann Jarvis was a mother who fought for peace in her country for the sake of her children. Her daughter, Anna, was so struck by the integrity of that fight she worked to have a day to commemorate her mother and all mothers.

Today, mothers are still fighting for rights for their children, be it affordable housing, equal pay, reproductive rights, child care, retirement security or access to education. These are the dividends of peace and should be a reality for our children.

On Sunday, we should all take some time to thank our mothers for their care, their love and their hopes for better lives for their children, and show them that we appreciate all that they do.

[Employment Insurance, May 10th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I have to say that the hearts that go out do not move my heart. Where was the government when 465 workers were being told to take a 50% cut in pay, to lose their benefits, to lose their pensions?

In terms of Service Canada workers in London, Ontario, they are magnificent. They work hard, they do their job and they are committed to helping people in my community. The problem is that there are not enough of them because too many have been laid off.

It is women in particular who have difficulty accessing EI. Many of them waited weeks to get employment insurance. In terms of women who work part-time or have caregiving obligations, employment insurance is simply not there for them. There are more hurdles to access it than I can begin to describe here. People are left without the money they need. There are too many restrictions and the Conservative government sits and has the audacity to say all is well.

All is not well and it is up to the Conservative government to make amends and fix it.

[Employment Insurance, May 10th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to talk about the important employment insurance issues in my riding.

London has been hard hit by the downturn in the economy and the collapse of the auto sector. The manufacturing sector in particular has been devastated in the London region, and it is not just in London. Statistics Canada reports that automotive parts manufacturing lost more than one-quarter of its employees from 2004 to 2008, while motor vehicle manufacturing lost one-fifth. Parts manufacturing saw job numbers go from 139,300 to 98,700, which completely cancelled the strong growth from 1998 to 2004. For their part, motor vehicle manufacturers lost 15,900 jobs between 2004 and 2008 following a rather modest job growth of about 5% from 1998 to 2004.

Canada has lost nearly 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the Conservatives took office in 2006 and we lost over 40,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year alone. We are currently at an historic low in terms of manufacturing jobs, going back to when statistics were first gathered in 1976. I would like to note at this point that this low is quite significant because both our labour force and population have grown significantly over that same period. In other words, there are fewer manufacturing jobs in Canada now than there were in 1976.

In my own community of London, we have been particularly hard hit. The city's manufacturing sector has been shrinking at a rapid rate and the auto sector jobs, as I have mentioned, have all but disappeared. Electro-Motive Diesel was one of those few plants in London offering good jobs. That was in operation as late as December of last year, Those jobs were well-paying jobs that helped support a family and support an entire community. To add insult to injury, the plant is gone now, the jobs have been lost and families have been devastated, and yet orders are rolling in for that same diesel engine that was built at the Oxford Street plant. These orders are coming from Canada but the locomotives will be made in the state of Illinois. It is frustrating to note that the company maintained that it needed $30 million out of workers' pockets to keep the plant open but it spent $38 million to close it and then gave a $15 million bonus to the CEO. The workers in London were left waiting for EI payments to kick in, feeling violated by the company and by their own government.

The members opposite like to talk about job creation and yet no one stood up in defence of the good jobs that we already had at Electro-Motive Diesel, jobs that were shipped across the border.

The only support that remains for these auto workers and EMD workers is employment insurance. With the cuts made to Service Canada, there are fewer front line workers who can process claims in a timely fashion and help my constituents and others struggling to navigate through the system.

These are families just like ours, people who had their income revoked suddenly because their job got shipped to a plant in Indiana.

I will repeat my question of March 7. Why did the Conservatives raise billions of dollars on corporate tax giveaways instead of supporting out of work Canadians and the services they need? Tax cuts, I should add, do not guarantee a single job. I want to know why the government did not help to reinvest in Canada.

[Pensions, May 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are right to feel cheated by this Prime Minister. Exactly a year ago they voted, yet not once during the election did the Prime Minister say that a key priority for him would be to attack seniors' retirement income. Now we see why. Canadians are upset and are telling the Prime Minister directly in letters and emails that they are angry about changes to OAS. Still, the Conservative government ignores them. Will the government listen to Canadians and reverse course on its attack on OAS?

[Pensions, April 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this has nothing to do with common sense. This is about undermining our social safety net. This is about pitting one generation against another. Yes, there will be more seniors. We have known that for 40 years. What has been done? Nothing. The Conservatives have undermined health care, affordable housing and now they are undermining the old age security system.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer made it very clear. Yes, it will cost more but as we have an increased number of seniors we will also see an increase in our gross domestic product. Right now it costs 2.3% of GDP to support seniors. By 2030, it will be 3.3%, about the same as in the 1990s. By 2030, it will begin to decline right back down to where it is now, with a further decline to 1.4%.

This has nothing to do with supporting seniors of the future. It has everything to do with the fact that the government does not believe in being government, it does not believe in our social safety net and it does not believe in Canadians.

[Pensions, April 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I asked for this late show to follow up with the minister regarding the question I asked in the House about old age security. The minister quoted from a speech I made in which I said that we need a plan in place and we need the structures in place to deal with this dramatic shift in our country's demographics. The minister said that she agreed with me. If she does indeed agree, I would encourage her to continue to convince the government to reverse its decision to change the age of retirement from 65 to 67.

As I have already said, we need a plan in place to ensure there is adequate investment in the security of seniors, because there will indeed be more seniors. To prevent poverty and ensure dignity in retirement, we need to make investments and budgetary decisions now that will properly support our aging population.

Big business tax breaks, jails for unreported crimes and fighter jets costing billions do not meet the needs of Canadians as they look ahead to retirement. These are not the smart investments that will maintain our social safety net.

Old age security is sustainable. We can afford it. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has made it clear time and time again that no changes are needed. Because of the government's wrong-headed decisions, it is seniors who will suffer in the future.

A report just released by the NDP found that OAS and GIS make up more than half the income for about 1.2 million seniors, or 28%. For females, it is about 38% who get more than half of their income from OAS and GIS. For 510,000 seniors, or 12% of Canada's seniors, OAS and GIS make up more than 75% of their income. These are all individuals with incomes under $20,000.

Females make up 80% of those for whom OAS and GIS make up 75% or more of income. Of those for whom OAS and GIS make up 75% or more of income, 89% do not have an employer pension. Right now about 34,000 persons who are 66 or 67 are currently poor; without their OAS and GIS, about 129,000, or 95,000 more, will be poor. Without OAS and GIS, the poverty rate for these seniors increases from about 6% to 25%. The loss of OAS and GIS for senior households who have someone aged 66 or 67 would increase their poverty rate to nearly 40% in Atlantic Canada and to 50% for single females.

Surveys of recent retirees suggest that many seniors are not in a position to simply work two more years in response to changes to old age security. This population is unable to work for two more years.

I would say that any plan to change OAS is absolutely unacceptable. The government needs to take poor seniors into account when it does its budgeting, but it has not done so. This country cannot afford to make changes to the OAS and leave more and more seniors living in poverty.

[Petitions, April 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from the community of London and former workers of Electro-Motive Diesel.

The petitioners want the Parliament of Canada to know that Caterpillar illegally removed equipment from the EMD plant, forced a lockout of its workers in December of 2011, demanded that they take a 50% reduction in wages, slashed benefits and asked them to accept a reduced and insecure pension plan. All the while, these workers had increased productivity by 20% and the company was making billions and billions in additional profits.

The petitioners want the Parliament of Canada to investigate the conditions of sale of Electro-Motive Diesel to Caterpillar and to immediately enforce any and all appropriate penalties should there be violations under the Investment Canada Act.

We would also like to see the Investment Canada Act strengthened so this does not happen to other workers in our communities.