Marlene Jennings

[Petitions, September 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition calls upon the government to strengthen animal transportation regulations. Currently Canada's allowable transport times are among the longest in the industrial world. Animals that become injured or diseased during lengthy transport threaten the quality, health and safety of Canadian food products. The petitioners are calling for an amendment to the regulations under the Health of Animals Act to reduce the allowable transport time of animals.

[Petitions, September 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of tabling several petitions today.

The first is in support of animal welfare in Canada. It is well known that there is scientific consensus and public acknowledgement that animals feel pain and they can experience suffering. Therefore the petition, which bears the signatures of a number of my constituents, calls upon the House to adopt effective animal welfare legislation.

I have another petition which calls on the government to adopt the universal declaration of animal welfare and to advocate in support of a UDAW.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, first, when we talk about employment insurance under a Liberal government, the EI payroll tax was reduced 13 consecutive years. That has not happened under the Conservatives. In fact, they are talking about creating a $13 billion payroll tax as of 2011.

Second, under a Liberal government, EI maternity and paternity benefits were extended. I am quite proud of that as well. I have no apologies to make about the Liberal record with regard to EI under the Liberal tenure. I do, however, ask the member this. Why is his party supporting a Conservative government that has already said that it will increase the EI payroll tax by $13 billion? It is a job killer.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the member has just proven what I said, that the member from the Conservative Party, regardless of who it was who was going ask me a question, would again repeat the untruth that the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and the rest of her caucus have been repeating over and over again. Members opposite do not have to believe me. They should read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report. When those members say that the Liberal proposal is 45 days work for one year of benefits, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has proved that it is not true. For those members to continue to repeat it, in my view, shows bad faith on their part. They should read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-50.

I would like to begin simply by correcting some of the information we have been hearing in this House, particularly from members of the Conservative government, suggesting that the Liberals brought forward only one proposal during the work of the employment insurance working group, namely, the proposal concerning the eligibility threshold of 360 hours a year, which they described as 45 working days for one year of EI benefits. The Parliamentary Budget Officer clearly said that the government was not telling the truth when it made such a statement and that the government was exaggerating the cost of the Liberal plan.

I was a member of that committee, which met on several occasions. The Liberals presented their plan concerning an eligibility threshold of 360 hours, explaining that it would be for workers who receive regular benefits and that it would be for a period of one year. We estimated the cost of this measure at $1.5 billion, for approximately 160,000 workers.

We asked the government and its officials to examine our plan and assess the costs involved in such a measure with an eligibility threshold of 420 hours, 390 hours and 520 hours. We also asked the government to show us how it would benefit unemployed workers if, instead of using a three month period to determine the unemployment rate of a region, we used a one month period, or 30 days. In other words, we wanted to know how many workers who are entitled to benefits would be eligible for EI. We made several requests and several proposals. Everyone agreed that the department and its officials should assess those proposals. It was the minister herself who, in a meeting on August 23, informed the members of the committee that she had unilaterally decided to instruct her officials to stop all assessments of the Liberal proposals because the government had no intention of examining those proposals.

The Conservatives never submitted their own proposals. They did not do it on July 14 or July 23, on August 6 or August 13 or August 20. We were supposed to have our last scheduled meeting on September 3, according to the established procedure, and the two co-chairs were supposed to speak previously with each other to determine the agenda. The Liberal co-chair, the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour in Nova Scotia, phoned the minister on Friday, August 28 and left a message to the effect that he wanted to discuss the agenda for the meeting on September 3. The minister did not call him back that day. She did not call him back during the weekend, or on Monday, on Tuesday or on Wednesday. We decided on Wednesday, therefore, that we would not attend the meeting in view of the fact that the minister had clearly signalled that the Conservatives had no more interest in working with the Liberals. I just wanted to correct the misdeeds of these Conservatives and the disinformation being spread in the House.

Insofar as Bill C-50 is concerned, I think my colleague who spoke before me said it very well. Seasonal workers in Quebec, for example, will not benefit from the measures in it. The same is true of workers in the forest industry and workers in the fishing industry and pulp and paper industry.

There are cycles in these kinds of industries. People may work for the same company for 25 years while being laid off for certain periods because the work is seasonal. The Conservatives have long known that. They are doing with this bill what they always do: cherry pick.

In saying that 190,000 unemployed will benefit from these measures, the Conservatives are trying again to put one over on Canadians. They already exaggerated the cost of the Liberal plan. They did not just double it, they quadrupled it. It is not I who says this, it is the parliamentary budget officer. I wonder if they have not also exaggerated the figures on the number of workers who will benefit. How much, as a percentage, have they exaggerated?

Third party experts from trade unions and business people have studied the bill and cast doubt on the government’s figures. In their view, it is false to say 190,000 workers will be helped. It will be more like 60,000. The government has conflated three years but tries to make Canadians think it will be 190,000 workers a year. This is typical of the Conservatives. They say the truth one little drop at a time.

The government is engaging in disinformation and is saying things that are not true. The Conservatives think that if they say things often enough, people will believe them. I was not the one who said that. They inflated the figures in the Liberal proposal and refused to assess the other proposals the Liberals were prepared to examine.

The minister is insisting in this House that it was the Liberals who refused the Conservatives' proposals. That is not true. The minister is misleading the members of this House and Canadians who are watching the debates. The Conservatives never submitted any proposals, not even in connection with their election promise to make self-employed workers eligible for employment insurance during maternity and paternity leave. I was the one who, at the July 23 meeting, asked whether they had any proposals for making EI available to self-employed workers. I asked them to at least present their election promise and to come back on August 6 with a proposal and the figures they quoted during the election campaign.

Sometimes I am just gob-smacked—but not for long—by how the minister and her colleagues are in cahoots. I am sure that the Conservative member who gets up to ask me a question will dish out some more disinformation.

The Liberal Party will vote against this bill, because it has no confidence in this government, which is not telling the truth and is trying to scam Canadians.

[Employment Insurance, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is misleading the House.

First, the Conservatives did not submit any proposals to the EI working group. Second, she has admitted that she told her officials to stop analyzing the costs of the various Liberal proposals—I repeat, the various Liberal proposals.

When the Conservatives say that the unemployed give up when they lose their jobs, they are treating them like freeloaders.

[Employment Insurance, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have convinced the New Democrats that their mini-reform of employment insurance would help 190,000 unemployed workers, but Canadians are not fooled. Adding benefit weeks beyond the current limit will help a lot fewer people than what is predicted.

How can we trust the Conservatives and their numbers, when they are always full of hot air?

[Medical Isotopes, September 16th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this is a typical Conservative government ploy. It rewrites history so as not to take its share of the blame.

The hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke claims there is no connection between the closure of the Chalk River reactor and longer wait times for cancer detection and treatment.

When she answers questions about this crisis, she blames the provinces and the doctors.

Is this the position of the Conservative government? Is this the latest excuse it has found for not having a plan B?

[Medical Isotopes, September 16th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, inaction on the part of the Conservative government has left hospital budgets stretched to the limit. It has put at risk thousands of Canadians in need of cancer tests and medical treatment.

Now it appears the government has decided to try to blame the provinces and doctors for their medical isotope shortage. The Conservatives are claiming that the Chalk River shutdown has nothing to do with the 25% of Ontario cancer patients and other patients not receiving their treatment.

Does the minister really think Canadians are that gullible?

[Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, September 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are watching with interest the blooming romance between the Prime Minister and the leader of the NDP. Like many relationships, things started out a bit rocky.

For a long time, the Prime Minister was quite derisive of the NDP leader, calling him a “left-wing ideologue”, and his party “the Bloc anglais”. It might have had something to do with the fact that the NDP tried to kill the government 79 times, but it is all behind them now and the romance is in full bloom.

In retrospect, we all should have suspected something was afoot when the NDP changed its website to blue, featured its leader wearing a sweater vest, and talked about changing the name of the party. But I must say, I have a sad feeling this romance will only end up in heartache for all Canadians.