Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in this debate. What I heard from my hon. colleague from Sherbrooke was a complaint about a system that is broken and has not been fixed in a holistic way.
The present government, and the previous one that helped dismantle the system, is now in the process of adding band-aid upon band-aid instead of looking at the system that started to break in the 1980s, with a Conservative government led by Prime Minister Mulroney and continued on by Liberal governments through 1990s, when they gutted the system, overcharged us, pocketed the money and squandered $57 billion. Now, in a moment of crisis, we are trying to add a band-aid solution to a program that at one time worked for all Canadians across this land and now no longer does.
I commend the government on one hand for saying we should extend benefits that a lot of us get when it comes to maternity leave, parental benefits, compassionate care and sick leave. That is an equality issue the New Democrats and the labour movement have been demanding for a long time.
Clearly, sickness knows no workplace, whether it be self-employed at home, in industry or the service sector working for an employer. When people get ill, the illness does not knock on their door and ask if they are covered by a sick plan. People get sick and their needs are still the same. In families with only one person working and bringing home income, the need to sustain those families, keeping a roof over their heads, putting food on the table for their children or themselves. remains the same.
To start to add more to the program is a good thing. The problem with this is it simply says that some people might like it and they should think about entering the program. I am not too sure that is the appropriate way to do these sorts of things when it comes to adding on a new program. We need to look at it in a way that tells people these are great programs for them, that they need to join and here are the mechanisms to do it. It needs to be the same for the self-employed as it is for those of us who work for an employer and simply pay it.
Unfortunately, in life people will be faced with one or two of the benefits that will be available to the self-employed if we pass this bill. People will either get sick or require the compassionate care benefit. I have heard folks say for a long time that in life two things are absolute, taxes and the end of life.
When people deal with the end of life, whether it be parents, a loved one or a member of a family, we will all face that predicament. For a group to be singled out and not have the benefits as others who happen to be employed by someone else, to be honest from my own personal perspective, is criminal. We are not going to talk in a holistic way about those benefits. We are going to tell people they come into the program if they choose.
There are some difficulties with the program as there are with every program. I hope the government is listening. When people are sick, the two-week waiting period is an abomination. Regardless of whether people are laid off or get sick, it is really reprehensible when they are sick.
If people get sick and are unable to work, the first thing to happen is they lose money. We ought to be thinking about the fact that people do not choose to be ill. The illness could be of a catastrophic nature or people could end up in hospital, not like catching a cold and being laid up for a couple of weeks. It could be that someone has a major infection, lands in a hospital and is there for three, four, five, six, eight weeks. People have to wait for the stream of income required to sustain them through such periods of time.
They also have to go through the process of filling out cards and doing all those good things that the process talks about during an illness, and that is a delaying process. The two weeks really amounts to six by the time people receive any money.
Those who are ill need one less thing in their lives to worry about that could put them in a more serious situation than they are already in. We need to think about that element in the system. As I said earlier, it is really about justice and equality for all of us.
Why should some workers be treated in one way and others absolutely differently? When we look at the fairness of ensuring people having the ability to get involved in the program, it is long overdue. The New Democrats, as I said earlier about the labour movement, have been talking about a program that works for those of us in the working world because it is a program meant for us, as workers. It is designed for that.
Unfortunately, in the last 20 years, the design of the program is for the government to collect money. We watched the Liberals do it. The Conservatives, in their great thought processes, have looked at the Liberal plan. I have heard them from time to time say that the Liberals gave them a broken system. I have yet to hear them say that they will fix it. They continue with that broken system. They have said that in the House. I know it to be true because they would not mislead the House. What do they do? They do not fix it. That is a crime in itself. They need to fix the system if they know it is broken. Why would they continue with it? Yet they do.
We know the EI rates have been frozen for the next year. When we look at a plan of the Conservatives, we look at what they intend to do. They have obviously learned the lessons of the Liberals in the nineties. The Conservatives will be able to collect the money in 2011, heading to 2012, to 2013, to 2014 and forward. The revenue will be far greater than what they intended to pay out because the system will not be fixed. They are going to leave the 50-odd per cent of those who do not get covered by the system out of the system and collect the money. They saw what the previous government did. Then they will take the money, as my colleague said earlier, and transfer it, I would say squander it, and use it for other things, which places this program in jeopardy.
