Michael Savage

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, on the issue of walking away from the meeting, I have worked with the hon. member on committee before and I ask him to go to his minister and ask her where the agenda for that alleged meeting is. One of the protocols was that we would have the agenda in advance and that the two co-chairs, the minister and I would approve the agenda. They are always very simple. There were two issues, really, regional fairness and the self-employed, and maybe one or two other things. We would approve those the week before they would be sent out. That is when I called the minister to ask her where we were on that. I never got a call back. Where is the agenda for the meeting it is said that we walked away from?

We walked away from nothing. We kept going back time after time. We were prepared to be flexible to find something significant, not like something that is being thrown at us today, but something significant. We never got it. I understand how people would say that this Parliament is dysfunctional and that committee was an extension of it. We tried to make something work. We indicated that we were flexible. We asked them to give us a good idea and we still have not received anything.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Chambly—Borduas knows, there is a number of pilot projects on EI that have been brought in since 2000 and which have been extended by governments. This could have been a pilot program, but that does not play into the political game of chess that is existing here.

I do not question the motives of people in the House unless I have reason to do so. Regarding my experience this summer, my own discomfort is irrelevant, but what matters is the discomfort of Canadians who need help. We could have done something. We could have moved the ball. We were prepared to do something and not to let perfect be the enemy of better.

My colleague suggests this could be done as a pilot project. He is entirely correct, but that does not feed into the agenda the government has for this and that is unfortunate.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we walked away from nothing. We went to every meeting of the EI working group. As difficult and unproductive as they were, every meeting that was scheduled, we went to.

At the last meeting the Conservatives dropped on the table what they called discussion points. We asked if they had a proposal. They said no. We said that if they wanted to meet again, they should give us a proposal and we would have a look at it. That was August 20. The next week I called the minister to ask about the proposals. I called her office and spoke to her assistant on Friday afternoon. She said that the minister would get back to me. I have not heard from her yet about that meeting.

We did not walk away from anything. We brought proposals to the table. We also said that we were prepared to be flexible. We said that they should give us something that works. We think 360 makes sense, as do a lot of other people. Regional fairness is an issue for my hon. colleague, who I know is a serious member. His premier wants the same thing. He wants regional fairness. We asked the Conservatives to give us anything that we could cling to and makes sense. We asked them to give us something. To this day, we have received nothing. We have received no proposals.

I understand people being confused and saying that it is more of the same he said, she said. I tell you, Mr. Speaker and members of the House, we tried to make it work. We kept going back and we got nothing. It takes two, but we were the only ones there.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Crumbs, crumbs.

Armine Yalnizyan is one of the smarter economists in this country. We know Armine; she is very smart. She pointed out that the program's restrictions act against the nature of much of Canada's industry.

Laurel Ritchie of the Canadian Auto Workers said that few laid-off members of that union, “only handfuls”, have been able to meet the long-tenure definition.

CLC economist Andrew Jackson said that his understanding of the new proposal is it would fully apply only to unemployed workers who have initiated a claim to EI benefits since the beginning of this year.

That is where we are. We are debating a bill and we cannot be sure of its benefits in a period of time when EI has been the political football for the government.

The people in Canada who need help are not in the Rolodex of the Prime Minister. They are people such as workers across Canada who agreed to work reduced hours to keep companies afloat when things got tough, and then were laid off and found out they did not qualify for EI because they had worked reduced hours. They are people such as a single mother in my riding who struggles to raise her children, who can only work 20 hours a week, who is laid off and finds out she does not have the required number of hours to qualify for employment insurance.

Workers have paid into the system for years and they do not qualify for benefits, and the Conservative government turns a blind eye to them. At best, these people are mere numbers in the bigger picture.

In fact, to the government, it is all about numbers and not even the right numbers. It is not the 1.6 million unemployed the government pays attention to. It is not the 800,000 workers who have no EI benefits that it pays attention to. It is not the alleged 190,000 who it claims will be helped by this bill or the 60,000 who others suggest might be helped by this bill. It is not the $440 a week maximum weekly benefit, or the 330-hour average weekly benefit that those on EI get. It is not 360 hours. It is not 420 hours. It is not 560 hours. It is not 700 hours. Those are not the numbers that matter to the government.

The only numbers that matter to the government are the numbers 308 and 155, the number of seats in the House of Commons and the number that constitutes a majority.

To make those numbers work, the Conservatives will manipulate, distort and manufacture anything to win. It is always politics before people. This is the game they played with Canadians and the game continues today. We will not play that game. We have no faith or confidence in the government.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

That is a good question. My colleague asked where they got the $4 billion.

We look at this bill the Conservatives are bringing in today. They say it might affect 190,000 people and it would cost such and such. How do we know that? How do we trust the numbers? Perhaps the Parliamentary Budget Officer could look at that as well. How do we know what they are actually saying? Even if what they are suggesting is reasonable, people are pretty skeptical.

The head of the CAW, Ken Lewenza, said that what Canadians need is a “full loaf of bread”. He said that the plan to extend benefits for workers who have been employed for 7 of the past 10 years will not help the vast majority of the country's 1.6 million unemployed.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to have the opportunity to debate, for the second time this week, a bill about employment insurance.

We have heard from the government a bit about the bill. We will hear from the opposition parties how they feel about it, but the sad, overarching fact about all of this which overrides the content, or the lack of content, of this bill is that this is not really about employment insurance at all. It is about politics and about political games.

The Conservative government does not particularly care much about the social infrastructure of this country. We know that and we knew that from the beginning. When it inherited the Liberal surplus, it still cut literacy, the court challenges program, women's groups and many other pieces of the social infrastructure of this country. That is when it was living off our surpluses.

No, this is not a bill about EI. This is about politics and using EI as a tool. To the Conservatives, this is all a parliamentary chess game with politics first and people second.

Let us take a moment to see how we got to this today.

Last year at about this time, the Prime Minister was denying that there was any recession coming down on Canadians. We then had the economic update, which ignored the problem, and a finance minister who referred to the recession as a technical recession.

In January we saw a flawed budget, but there were some investments in things such as EI, extension for benefits and money for training. We said that we did not think the budget was enough but that it was a start. We supported it. The other parties did not. It was qualified support. The day we announced we would support the budget, we said that we needed to see more to continue our support of the government.

Last spring, employment insurance was a big issue. It was needed across the country. Jobs were being shed in many parts of Canada, including many parts of this country that had not suffered job losses in previous recessions.

The Leader of the Opposition indicated the Liberal position, which was regional fairness and a national standard of 360 hours to qualify. He was not alone on that.

The premier of B.C., Gordon Campbell, said Canadian workers, whether they lived in the Maritimes, the north, or Ontario, should be treated the same way.

The premier of Saskatchewan said that instead of 50-plus different treatments for the number of qualifying hours, we needed to dramatically reduce that.

The premier of Alberta said that unemployed families, whether they lived in Nova Scotia, Quebec or Alberta were equally unemployed.

The TD bank said that the truth of the matter was that during an economic downturn, it was no easier to find a job in a region with a lower prevailing unemployment rate than in one with a higher unemployment rate.

Pierre Fortin from Quebec said of the Leader of the Opposition's proposal that 360 hours was no problem, that it was just and fair.

A number of organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce said that a measure to improve the equity of the EI system that would be consistent with longer-term, smart policy would be to immediately and permanently make the duration of and access to benefits the same.

Perhaps my favourite was from the Reform Party of Canada platform's statement of principles which said: “An unemployed worker is an unemployed worker and deserves to be treated the same, regardless of region of residence. We will urge the immediate elimination of discriminatory EI elements such as regional entrance requirements”. The author of that is now the Prime Minister of this country. That is what he said then. We see where he is now.

In the spring, EI was a big issue, a huge issue in this Parliament. There were a number of private members' bills brought forward which Liberals supported as a way of sending a message to the government that this was a serious issue, that we would not agree with everything that was in all these bills that our colleagues from other parties had put forward, but that we supported the principle of investing in people and in the social infrastructure of this country.

Bill C-241, from my friend from Brome—Missisquoi, called for the removal of the two-week waiting period.

Bill C-279, from the member for Welland, called for an enactment providing that pension benefits, vacation pay and severance were not to be included in earnings.

Bill C-280, from my NDP colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, called for a lowering of the threshold for becoming a major attachment to 360 hours, the national standard, setting the weekly payable to 55% of the best 12 weeks and reducing the qualifying period for receiving benefits.

We had an opposition day motion brought forward by the member for Hamilton Mountain, and I am going to read the whole thing because it is interesting to juxtapose the view of the NDP on March 5 and the view of the NDP here in September. This motion said:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government must address the alarming growth in the number of unemployed Canadians and the increasing number of Employment Insurance claimants; confirm its commitment to a social safety net to help regular Canadians through tough times and bring forward reforms to Employment Insurance rules to expand eligibility and improve benefits, including: (a) eliminate the two-week waiting period; (b) reduce the qualifying period to a minimum of 360 hours of work, regardless of the regional rate of unemployment; (c) allow self-employed workers to participate in the plan; (d) raise the rate of benefits to 60% and base benefits on the best 12 weeks in the qualifying period; and (e) encourage training and re-training.

There is nothing in there about extending benefits further.

That was the discussion back in the spring. It was a very long discussion in the House that dominated many question periods. It was called for in private members' bills and in opposition day motions.

Outside of the House, we heard the premiers, economists and labour unions. We heard everyone saying that we had to do something. The first thing they always mentioned was the unfairness of the system, particularly in a difficult economic time, for people who simply were unable to qualify.

As recently as Monday, my colleague on the human resources committee, the member for Chambly—Borduas, brought forward a bill that called for many of those same things.

In June Parliament was paralyzed and the country was on the verge of having an election until the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister said, “Let us try to make an effort. Let us try to take this out of question period and put it into a room where people can discuss ideas”. The two things that were going to be discussed were regional fairness, from the Liberals, and extending EI to the self-employed, from the Conservatives. Those were the two issues.

What happened? On June 17 this EI working group, called a blue ribbon panel, was formed to look at those two issues. I was announced, my colleague, the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine was the other member along with Kevin Chan, a very distinguished member of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. We were the three members. The minister was announced by the Prime Minister.

Two weeks later the other two members of the Conservative Party were announced. That was two weeks after June 17, so we were already into the summer.

We had a tele-conference. The minister said, “I cannot meet for two weeks. I have a vacation”. We were going to meet the next week and the other member of the Conservative Party said, “I've got a vacation too”, so we had to delay it again.

We had our first full briefing on July 14 which was a technical briefing. The minister in the House just said that we only had one position and she had all kinds. The minister presented nothing. There still is not a Conservative proposal to that group. If there is, she knows where my office is. She can send it. We still have not seen a proposal from the Conservatives.

On that day, July 14, in Ottawa we asked a series of questions of the working group. We asked it to cost 360 hours on a temporary basis. We also said, “Give us the cost of going to 390 hours, give us the cost of going to 420 hours, give us the cost of eliminating the three month regional rate system which penalizes people who lose their jobs on the front end of an economic downturn”.

My colleague from Montreal said, “Maybe we should look at the extension of benefits. We could at least look at it. Look at what they are doing in the United States”. That was a Liberal idea on July 14. We have it in writing, Mr. Speaker. I would be happy to send it to your office because I know you are a learned man.

We also asked, “Where is the position on the self-employed, which is your position?”. The Conservatives even promised it in the last election. They said that the Conservative government would extend EI benefits for maternal parental benefits for self-employed people.

The Conservatives said that they could not give us that information. We asked, “You can't tell us what it will cost, you must have cost it for your platform”. They said they could not give us that because it belongs to the Conservative Party of Canada.

I said, “You've got a department and you've got all kinds of people”. Whenever the minister would come to the human resources committee, she would bring a whole boatload of good people in whom we have faith when they are properly directed. The Conservatives said that they cannot give us that information.

We still do not know what that would have cost, concerning the self-employed. That was the Conservative proposal. They said to the Leader of the Opposition, “We want to look at the self-employed based on what we promised in the last election”. We got nothing.

On July 23 we had our first full meeting of the EI working group. We had agreed before that there would be certain protocols followed. The Conservatives would give us documents in advance, we would look at them, and we would all come prepared to discuss them. They would table drafts and we got them at the meeting.

I talked to the minister four or five days before. She was king enough to call when she got back from vacation. She said, “Why don't we present on the self-employed and you present on regional fairness”.

We presented on regional fairness. We had a long discussion and all six members of the working group agreed that we should get information on a number of areas. I will come to the exciting part about that later, which is that we never got that information either. We agreed on protocols and we did not get it.

We had a full discussion. There was no proposal from the Conservatives on the self-employed. We agreed to have three meetings in August. That is what our group did.

The meeting on August 6 was a beauty. We arrived at the meeting. The Conservatives provided their costing of 360 hours. They brought it to the meeting, but they gave it to reporters beforehand. I can show members. I have it here. It indicates on the bottom that it is not for distribution. Maybe they meant they were not going to distribute it to wholesalers across the country or something like that, but they gave it to the media who did not take it seriously. The Conservatives said that the 360 hour costing would be four billion and some dollars. Everybody else said it would be $1.5 billion.

The Conservatives said it would be $4 billion. How did they get to that number? They would not show us the work. When I was in school, I was not great at math and I was always told to show the work. I was not very good at that. It made it harder for me to guess. The Conservatives did not show their work. It was not the department that did not want to show it. It was the minister who did not want to show it. No answers were given to our questions. They leaked a document that was not for distribution. We responded to that.

On August 13 there was another table drop of documents. They brought in new costing for the 360 hours, which again was inflated. They refused to separate the hard, static cost from what they referred to as the estimated potential labour market impact. They said that if EI was changed, there would be an impact on the labour market. There are a couple of problems with that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer picked that one out fairly easily.

The Conservatives said that back in the 1970s the changes made to liberalize EI increased the unemployment rate by 2%. They are saying it will happen again. Let us picture that. Somebody out there who has a job is just itching to leave that job in order to get, for a maximum of 36 weeks, 55% of what he or she was making. It is an insult to Canadians to suggest that is what Canadians would want to do. It is on a temporary basis, not something that goes on forever. In the 1970s people could quit a job and get EI, but that cannot be done now. There is a whole host of differences.

Again, there was nothing on the self-employed.

On August 20 we arrived at the meeting. Again, we were given documents. There was no information in advance. We said that we would have to go away and look at them. That was probably another time the Conservatives suggested to themselves that we would not come back. The Conservatives did not give us information. They were not treating us seriously. There were no proposals. We kept going back, and going back, and going back.

We looked at some points at issue. That meeting, very significantly, was when the minister confirmed that in spite of the protocols of the EI working group which was that we would all submit our questions, the questions would go to the department through a secretariat and the answers would come back, she said that she had told the department not to answer those questions. Why would she tell the department that? Well, we are not going there anyway. We all agreed, including the minister, that we would get questions answered. The minister decided by herself that she did not like that.

That is the EI working group. In 10 weeks there were no serious proposals. Protocols were overridden.

On many occasions we offered to meet more often. It was not just for the joy of the company of the member for Nepean—Carleton and the minister. We felt that this was something serious and we should meet.

We suggested that we meet all day on August 19 and 20, or at least meet in the morning starting at 9 o'clock on the Thursday so we could seriously get at this stuff. We did not meet.

On August 20 we said that if we were not going to get information, we wanted to know to whom we could go for an independent analysis of what is going on.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer is an independent officer of this Parliament. We sent him the information about our proposals. He sent a letter to the department asking if it could back up the information by a certain date. The department could not do that. He did his analysis, and I will quote from that now:

The Government's total cost estimate, including static and dynamic costs, presented to the EIWG on August 14 of $2.425 billion overstates the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard of EI eligibility as--

The Parliamentary Budget Officer went on to say that he believes that the government's dynamic cost estimate is flawed. He said that only the static cost should be considered because the proposed change to the EI system is in effect for only one year and not longer. In the opinion of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the $1.148 billion static cost estimate is a reasonable estimate of the costs of the proposed 360 hour national standard of eligibility. I repeat that the $1.148 billion static cost is a reasonable estimate.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 15th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I did meet with the woman he spoke of. As I mentioned, I had concerns about this bill. I think it is incumbent upon members of Parliament to meet with as many people as they can. I do not dispute anything she said. However, we also have to take a look at these things from a balanced perspective and we have to make a decision.

According to Human Rights Watch:

[U]nder U.S. pressure related to the FTA, Colombia has started to take some positive steps on impugnity for anti-union violence.

So I do not dispute anything that people have told me and I will meet with anybody who has a concern about any piece of legislation. However, it is our job as parliamentarians to make a decision on balance. On balance, it is my view that a free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia will not only assist Canadian industry but will assist the people of Colombia to live more peaceful and prosperous lives.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 15th, 2009]

The home of Sidney Crosby, Madam Speaker.

The member forgets one simple fact, that all these abuses have happened without a free trade agreement with Canada. It is almost as if she is suggesting that all these abuses happened because Canada is considering a free trade agreement. In fact, there are conditions built into this bill that have the serious and significant potential to improve the situation in terms of human rights abuses in Colombia.

I have been in this House since 2004. I am not surprised that the NDP is opposed to this and I am not condemning members of that party for being opposed to it. I just do not think they have taken an open-minded approach to looking at this bill on balance and asking whether it can be good or bad for that country. That is what the NDP should do.

I think, on balance, the social infrastructure of the country that we are going to deal with can be made better by a deal with Canada. Average people in that country may be better off if Canada does not ignore them, does not shut them out, but in fact engages them in a free trade agreement.

That is my hope. That is my expectation. That is why I support the bill.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 15th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-23, which is the free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia.

I want to set the frame for my own involvement in this debate by saying that this was a difficult bill for me at first. I have met with delegations from Colombia and union organizers here who have expressed concerns about the human rights in that country. I take that seriously.

Colombia is a violent country. There are many instances of corruption and human rights violations, which is consistent with a narco-economy. It is indisputable that there is instability in Colombia and there have been human rights violations. It is also indisputable that there have been improvements economically, socially, and in terms of safety, so we balance off those two different issues.

The question for the people of that country is: How will things get better? Is the move more negative or positive for countries like Canada to engage Colombia? Of course, we have heard Canada is not alone. Many other countries are doing the same thing, looking at trade agreements with this country.

As members of Parliament, balance is something we deal with all the time on issues. We balance local concerns with national concerns. We are always looking at what our constituents want with what we consider to be the national interest. Also, the party under whose banner we were elected plays a role as well.

We balance the time that we spend on constituency work with the time we spend on national issues or perhaps party responsibilities, being a minister, a critic or work on committees. One of the difficult things about politics is finding the right balance.

On issues, quite often, it is a matter of finding a balance as well. We deal with issues that challenge us. There are pros and cons on both sides of an issue. How do we work within Parliament and even within our own parties to move the ball on things and to advance not only Canadian interests but the interests of people with whom we deal?

I want to pay tribute and offer my thanks to the Liberal critic for international trade. On a number of issues, he and I have had very serious discussions about concerns I have had and maybe issues on which we differed in the beginning. It is through working with him and the leadership that he has provided the Liberal caucus that we have been able to come up with solutions that make sense.

There have been a number of contentious issues on the trade front. The EFTA deal was one. It was difficult for me, my colleague from Halifax West, and those of us who have been actively supporting the shipbuilding industry with the negligence that has been shown by the government. A potential negative impact in the EFTA deal was its impact on Canadian shipbuilding. This Colombian deal is difficult because of the human rights violations, the allegations but certainly the violations of human rights that have happened in Colombia.

On EFTA, the Liberal critic, the member for Kings—Hants, the member for Outremont, the critic for industry, the member for Halifax West and I worked on this issue. How do we know what the right thing is? We are concerned about the impact on shipbuilding with EFTA.

Our critic sat down with us and we asked what the real problem was? The real problem for shipbuilding is that there is no national strategy for shipbuilding and that is what Canada needs. That, above all else, is what we need. That is why a country like Norway, which was the concern in the EFTA deal, has supported, advanced and consistently invested in the shipbuilding industry. It has gotten to a point now where it presents a bit of an issue for us.

My colleague from Halifax West, our industry critic, our free trade critic and I went to see our leader. He said, absolutely, he would commit the Liberal Party to having a national strategy on shipbuilding, that we would look at things like tariffs, the structured financing facility, those things that will make a difference to shipbuilding.

In the summer, just after the House adjourned in June, the four of us met with representatives of the shipbuilding industry, with companies, shipbuilding associations and workers. We came to an agreement that there were certain things we could do to advance shipbuilding, to make sure that everything is taken care of, that workers, management and shipbuilding associations can come together on a shipbuilding strategy that a Liberal government would facilitate, would lead, and that would make sure that shipbuilding retains its rightful place in the industrial structure of Canada.

On this deal, our critic and I had some discussions. Our critic for international trade and our critic for foreign affairs worked diligently on this file. They met with many Colombian stakeholders. They went down to Colombia, not with blinkers on but to study what is happening in that country. They met with trade representatives, think-tanks, unions, with President Uribe himself and with the UN High Commission and human rights representative in that country, to find out whether this deal would help or hurt.

Through all that work and the leadership that was shown by our critics on this file, I believe this free trade agreement can improve conditions in Colombia, conditions that have to some extent improved already, as the members for Niagara West—Glanbrook, Toronto Centre and others have pointed out.

We know we need to be vigilant. We know there is much work that has to be done. We know there are people who have been killed, people from labour unions, labour organizers and many others. The question is, how do we have a positive impact on that? How do we make sure that what we are doing is right, not only for ourselves but for other people with whom we share this world?

Many of the progressive forces in Colombia in fact look to Canada to assist and they believe this deal can actually enable them to make things better for the citizens of that country, to improve the lives of people who struggle in that country. They consulted extensively and with an open mind.

As we have heard as well, we are not the only progressive country in the world. Many of the countries with whom we do business, to whom we compare ourselves on human rights, labour conditions, fair wages and international development, are also negotiating with Colombia. Of course, in the United States, the Obama administration has signalled that it is perhaps readier to move now on this than it had been before, that this is important to the people of that country as well as the people of Colombia. So we have similar goals.

Generally, as a Liberal, I support freer trade. Among the organizations that are supporting this deal, I see Canada Pork International and the Cattlemen's Association. There are organizations in this country that, as my colleague from Malpeque has pointed out, need help. He called for an emergency debate earlier today on agriculture. These are organizations that can benefit as well.

We should be supporting freer trade. That is what we do as Liberals, but we always want to make sure that we see the whole picture and that we are not ignoring things that are going on in a country with which we choose to do business. We think, though, this deal can have a positive impact in reducing human rights abuses and helping to build and strengthen the social infrastructure in that country, strengthen the social foundations and actually make things better for the people who are suffering now.

At the end of the day, when we look at any kind of free trade bills, there are some in this House who will always oppose them. Perhaps there are some who always support them. I think it is important that we look at every bill, at the global picture as well as the national picture. We have to look at the people we are dealing with as well as the people in this country. We have to make sure that we are doing things for the right reasons, that we are protecting citizens wherever they live in this world, not just to the benefit of ourselves.

To support Canadian industry is not a bad thing. To support industry in other nations is not a bad thing. On balance and from the discussions we had, I have come to the very firm conclusion that this bill needs to go forward and it needs to go forward quickly.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, here we are back in Parliament in the fall, again speaking about employment insurance. It is almost as if we never left.

Much has happened over the summer but little has changed. We still have a Conservative government that puts politics before people, that does not see EI as the fundamental and critical part of our social infrastructure that is so necessary at a time of difficulty, but rather a government that sees EI as a political tool, a blunt instrument to divide Canadians, to divide Parliament, as part of a strategic ploy hatched to distribute false and misleading information to Canadians.

This is a government that uses false statistics and never allows facts or truth to get in the way of its goal to divide this country. These are the traits, indeed, this is the character of the government. Employment insurance is but one example.

Today we look at the work of my colleague, the distinguished member for Chambly—Borduas in Bill C-308, who today introduced his bill in this Parliament and is worthy of consideration. One of the most important things in his bill is the issue of a 360-hour national standard for eligibility. This is something that has had a lot of attention, not just from members of the House but from people across the country.

Let me just give a couple of quotes from people who might be recognized across Canada.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said in August, “What we’re really saying is Canadian workers, whether they live in the Maritimes, the West or North or Ontario, we should treat them the same way”.

Brad Wall, Premier of Saskatchewan, said “Instead of 50-plus different treatments for the number of qualifying hours, we need to dramatically reduce that”.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said, “An unemployed family, whether they live in Nova Scotia, Quebec or Alberta, are equally unemployed”.

The TD Bank, in July, said, “The truth of the matter is that during an economic downturn, it is no easier to find a job in a region with lower prevailing unemployment than in one with a higher unemployment rate”.

Pierre Fortin, economics professor, said of the Leader of the Opposition that his proposal of 360 hours was not a problem. It was just and it was fair.

The Star Phoenix in Saskatoon said, “Clearly, EI services should be equally applied across the country. Isn't that what being a nation is all about”?

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, who my colleague, the parliamentary secretary referred to, said:

A measure to improve the equity of the EI system that would be consistent with longer-term smart policy aimed at improving labour mobility and flexibility would be to immediately and permanently make the duration of, and access to, benefits equal--

How about this one: “An unemployed worker is an unemployed worker and deserves to be treated the same, regardless of region of residence. We will urge the immediate elimination of discriminatory EI elements such as regional entrance requirements”. This was said in the Reform Party of Canada platform statement authored by the now Prime Minister of this country. Let me repeat the last bit, “We will urge the immediate elimination of discriminatory EI elements such as regional entrance requirements”.

Here we are. We resume Parliament more or less where we left it off in June. As the session ended last spring, we all remember that we were on the verge of an election. It was averted when our leader and the Prime Minister agreed to a joint committee that would spend the summer looking at improvements to EI, specifically two things: regional fairness, which was our issue, and the Prime Minister added the issue of the self-employed. That was the proposal from the Conservatives, part of which they had promised in the last election but had not acted upon.

We had these meetings. I was there along with my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Kevin Chan from our leader's office, and three members of the opposition. The meetings were difficulty but I do not suppose that this particularly relevant. People do not care how we spend our summer time.

The bottom line is that the Conservative members of this committee stalled, delayed and brought nothing to the table, absolutely nothing serious. I do not believe this was unintentional. The Conservative members broke confidential protocols. It had been decided that there would be certain protocols about confidentiality. At almost every turn the Conservative members prevented departmental officials from giving information that we had all agreed to, including the Conservative members. That is unbelievable.

The Conservative members leaked a document that they themselves indicated should not be leaked. I am looking at it. It says “Employment insurance working group--not for distribution”. The members brought that to a meeting. The only problem was, it was already given to the media. Why would the Conservative members do that?

Mr. Speaker, I can see you are shocked. The Conservative members did it because there was false and misleading information in that document. They increased the cost of the Liberal proposal for regional fairness by over 400%, not a little bit.

I took the decision to ask the Parliamentary Budget Officer, an independent officer of this House, to review the government numbers. We now know the result of that.

The PBO, appointed by the government, came back and said, yes, the government inflated the cost and, in fact, indicated that the actual cost of our 360-hour temporary proposal was slightly under the cost proposed by the Liberals.

This is some of what the Parliamentary Budget Officer said in his report:

The government's total cost estimate overstates the cost of the proposed 360-hour national standard. The Parliamentary Budget Officer believes that the government's dynamic cost estimate is flawed. More important, the PBO also believes that only the static costs should be considered in costing the proposal, given the structure of the program and that the proposed change to the EI system is in effect for one year only. This is the independent officer of this House and this is what he came back with.

The response from the government was that it did not change anything. The government first ignored it, then continued to mislead and still used, as recently as Friday, the $4 billion, even though everybody knows that it was discredited.

That is how the summer went.

I was asked many times by people across the country, including people in my own caucus and in my riding, “Why do you keep going to these meetings? You know that the Conservatives are not serious. They have not presented anything. Why would you keep going back?” We went to every scheduled meeting, to try to find a consensus.

Canadians have more important things on their minds than to follow what is happening with an employment insurance working group. However, to the extent that they paid attention, who could blame them for saying that that was just an extension of a dysfunctional Parliament? Who could blame them for saying, “You have just dragged question period throughout the summer. You guys can't get along in the House of Commons and you can't get along in the summer”? Who could blame them for saying, “He said this and she said that; you're all equally to blame”?

We tried to make it work. We went to those committees to try to make those committees work. Yes, we had an opening position, supported by many people across this country: economists, labour leaders, anti-poverty groups, even business people, and premiers of provinces who have many representatives on the other side of this House. We had that position, we presented it, and we all agreed that we would go away and get that costed. When the number came back, it was distorted.

However, beyond that, we also asked other questions. These are the questions we tabled to the group on July 23.

What is the current deficit in this year's EI account?

What are the components of that deficit? There was no answer.

How many Canadians have seen increased access to EI by region?

What would be the incremental cost of having a 360-hour national standard for eligibility?

We also asked, at that same meeting in July, what would be the cost of a 395-hour standard and a 420-hour standard?

We asked, how many Canadians draw benefits for the maximum duration?

What percentage of claimants are expected to draw the maximum weeks? Perhaps extending benefits further is a very sensible thing.

We did not get answers to all of those questions.

We also asked, in areas where the unemployment changes the eligibility criteria, how does the time lag between job loss of people becoming eligible for benefits go into the issue of a three-month average versus a one-month average to determine eligibility?

We asked all those questions.

We followed the protocols of the working group. We established the working group, we established protocols, we followed those protocols, and we expected answers. We were told we would get answers.

At the last meeting of the group, the minister told us that he told the department not to even bother with that, not to even bother with the stuff that we all agreed with.

Many of us in this House come from backgrounds in business or labour organizations or other non-for-profit organizations. We do negotiations as a way of doing business to make perfect not be the enemy of better. However, we all know, whether we are in labour or management or any other organization, it takes two to make something happen.

Employment insurance to the government is a ploy. It is part of the game of politics.

Here today, as Parliament resumes in the fall, we are where we left off in the spring, and for the government the games continue.