Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to follow my colleague, a colleague who understands and knows the EI system better than most people in this House. He is a true expert in the area. He has done a lot for unemployed people over the last number of years.
At the outset, I want to compliment the government for bringing in a bill that appears to have all-party support in the House. That is a welcome change from the government we were seeing six months to a year ago. The Conservatives perhaps are learning their lesson rather slowly, but nevertheless they are learning that if they bring in legislation that benefits workers in this case, or benefits Canadians, they can continue to achieve at least a majority support of the House, or perhaps even both houses in this case. They may find themselves successful in a minority government situation for a lot longer than most people think. That is certainly a good sign and we expect to see more positive initiatives from the government over the next few months and maybe even years.
Having said that, if the government proceeds to bring in omnibus bills with poison pills and wedge issues in them, then it will end up seeing itself defeated and we will be into an election which, once again, nobody wants. If that were to happen, I think members of the public are aware enough that they would know that it was a set-up on the part of the government.
I would also like to compliment the Liberals for climbing down from their ledge. It has taken them a month to do it. They did oppose Bill C-50, which would provide $1 billion to 190,000 long-tenured workers in this country. They did vote against that. I thought that was something they probably should not have done, but I see that on this particular provision, extending benefits to self-employed people, the Liberals themselves are on board. Therefore, I anticipate that perhaps by the end of today, this bill will receive all-party support to get it to committee where I am sure through the committee process, there may be some adjustments and changes.
As I had indicated, we are providing under this bill employment insurance special benefits to the self-employed. In the 2008 Speech from the Throne, the government committed to take measures to increase access to maternity and parental benefits under employment insurance. The commitment is being met by providing the self-employed access to all EI special benefits on a voluntary basis. These include maternity, parental, adoption, sickness and compassionate care benefits.
Not only were these promises made in the Conservative Party's election program, but this promise was also made as part of the NDP election promises last year.
We also note that in 2008, 2.6 million Canadians reported some income from self-employment, and for a large majority, it is their sole source of income. The share of self-employed in the labour force has been relatively stable over the past decade at 15%. I have to take that figure at face value because I personally do not believe that that is true.
I see an explosion, in fact, of self-employed people in the labour force, probably starting back in the early 1980s. It may even be earlier than that, but companies have changed their methods of doing business. For example, computer companies that repair computers would turn around and lay off their repair staff, and then hire them back as self-employed individuals. In some cases that was a win-win situation because the employees were perhaps happy to be working for themselves. They could take on customers other than simply working for their previous employer. They would get to deduct their expenses and perhaps even deduct office expenses because many would be working out of their houses. We have certainly seen a lot of activity in that area.
As long as 25 years ago, pretty much all of the real estate business was made up of employer-employee relationships and deductions were taken. During the old Block Brothers days, deductions were taken from the agents who were considered employees in terms of benefits.
In the early to mid-1980s companies like RE/MAX and others that members would be familiar with simply went to an option of self-employment. I say that as an option because a lot of those companies retained a hybrid system. Some companies did go totally to a self-employed model and thereby moved away from worrying about deductions and so on, and in turn transferred the responsibility over to the agents themselves so they became self-employed and could deduct their expenses. This probably worked out for some employees, but in a lot of cases the employees were actually worse off than they were before.
I have had other experiences over the years. I have heard of people giving up good paying jobs to open a Pizza Hut or a restaurant thinking of themselves overnight as entrepreneurs. They worked many more hours than they were before and getting less benefits. They were taking a different look on life. The reality is that they would have been better off staying as salaried employees.
Many self-employed people may have gone there by choice. They may in fact have been doing better than they were before, but there are a number out there who went in that direction not on a voluntary basis but were forced into self-employment. They are doing worse than they were before.
This measure has been a long time coming. People who are self-employed will benefit under this system. Perhaps a measure like this might actually encourage more self-employed individuals in the marketplace when they find that they can be covered for benefits under the employment insurance system.
Self-employed people face a very difficult time trying to find insurance coverage for themselves and their families because they do not belong to a group so they do not qualify for group benefits. No insurance company wants to insure one or two people, so it is very difficult for them. They are basically out there on their own and they do not have a lot of support or protection. Anything that we could do to help them through the EI system is a positive thing.