Michael Savage

[Employment Insurance, May 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary has been making a lot more sense since he started quoting Liberals, even taken out of context. The Conservatives say that they are bringing fairness to EI at this difficult time.

Let us put it in context. The Minister of Finance's $50 billion deficit for one year could fund our proposal for the next 40 years. Our proposal would support 150,000 families, who would then immediately put it into the real economy. They need the money and so does the economy.

That is a win-win. It is economically prudent, fiscally responsible, perfect stimulus for families and the economy. Is that why the government just does not get it?

[Employment Insurance, May 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, recently re-elected Premier Gordon Campbell added his voice to the chorus calling for a national standard on EI. He joins a diverse group, including the CCPA, labour unions, the C.D. Howe Institute, the TD Bank, a number of premiers and even the finance minister's wife. What these people understand, but the Conservatives do not, is that EI is perfect stimulus spending.

We know that individuals spend the money right away because they need the money to survive. For every $1 of EI, we generate $1.60 of economic activity. It makes perfect economic sense. Is that why the government opposes it?

[Senate Ethics Act, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, when a person comes to this place, one realizes the work the Senate does, people like Mike Kirby and his work on health and on mental health. I was at the Calgary social forum last week, and Senator Hugh Segal, a Progressive Conservative appointed by a Liberal, was speaking about poverty. He has a great deal of credibility.

I think that changes are needed. Nova Scotia has 10 senators and Alberta has six. There are things that need to be done, but my colleague is quite right that this is not the way to do them. It will not add up to anything.

I wonder if there is any reason Canadians should believe that this is anything other than an attempt to divert people's attention from a government that has the finances of this country out of control. There is a $50 billion deficit and there are people who cannot get employment insurance. The government has totally lost control, and this is just another attempt to divert attention from that.

[Youth Voluntary Service, May 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to finish my remarks in support of Motion No. 299 put forward by the member for Papineau.

When we left off on February 25, I know I have been called long winded but I have never given a three month speech before. However, I am very pleased to continue the discussion on this important motion.

Since I spoke on this the first time, it has been illuminating for me. The member for Papineau came to my constituency to visit Auburn Drive High School and was able to engage with the young people in my constituency about the importance of youth service and about his motion. I can tell the House that there is a great deal of excitement about that. I want to thank Mike MacKenzie and the other teachers at Auburn Drive High School who arranged that visit. We had originally planned to speak in front of one class. Then they called and asked if it could be two classes and then they asked if it could be three classes. We ended up speaking to about 220 students.

The member for Papineau is an excellent leader, particularly when it comes to young people. He has an issue here that has been very important to him and I think it really strikes a chord with young Canadians. I think this galvanizes young Canadians. I think young Canadians are particularly interested in youth service. They are looking for some options and some ways to be involved in the community and there are a host of benefits that come, both for the young Canadians who might do it but also for the community.

A poll done less than a year ago by EKOS indicated that 80% of Canadians favoured some kind of a national youth service strategy for Canada. Jean-Guy Bigeau, the executive director at that time for Katimavik, said:

A strong national youth service policy would produce visible evidence of our commitment to ensure that this vital segment of our population is included into the socio-economic life of our society.

That is very important. We have great potential. Other countries are doing this kind of thing. We know the gap year in the U.K and countries like Australia and other European countries are doing this. It is very important for Canada to engage in this.

Why now? It would increase dramatically the level of engagement of young Canadians into the political, social and the many dynamics of our society. People say that young people are disengaged but that has not been my experience in my community. They are engaged. They need a reason to be involved in things like politics but there are things they need to do first, which is to get involved in their community, and it also gives them a chance to have a look at Canada.

We have such a big country that most Canadians, by the time they get through high school, have not had a chance to see Canada. We should encourage them to experience the linguistic, cultural and geographic diversity of the country.

I have not had a chance to talk much with the member for Papineau about this but I think there is a huge potential for a group of young Canadians whose potential we are not harnessing and that is young people with disabilities.

I, and I am sure other members, see young Canadians with disabilities in our constituencies who actually go to high school with their colleagues and are very much accepted and embraced by the high school students and feel very much a part of everything that happens in high school. They are involved in the social side of high school and then they graduate. They all celebrate together and then all of their friends go off to university, community college or to a job and many young Canadians with disabilities are left with nothing.

I think there is a huge potential, through the member's initiative, if we can study it at committee and have a look at what other countries are doing. We need to look at what works and what does not work. We need to talk to young Canadians, NGOs and communities who would welcome the opportunity to have young people involved in building the infrastructure of their community and increasing their cultural awareness of what they do.

This is a very positive step and its time has come in Canada. I want to applaud the member for Papineau. This is not a new initiative for him. He has worked on this for much of his relatively young life. He has brought this passion with him to Parliament. It is an entirely worthy project and I hope all members of the House will support it.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 25th, 2009]

With regard to Employment Insurance: (a) how many part-time staff have been hired since June 2008, by month; (b) how many full-time staff have been hired since June 2008, by month; (c) how many part-time and full-time staff have been hired in each region since June 2008, by month; and (d) how many service telephone lines are working in each region and how many of these telephone lines are staffed at one time?

[Points of Order, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During question period, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities was spreading some untruths about the Liberal EI plan for fairness, saying that people could qualify for EI after working 45 days and collect for a year. The minister knows this is not the case. EI benefits last anywhere from 19 to 50 weeks. Most would qualify at the early stage of that. We have heard this from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Human Resources. I would ask them to retract.

I do not think Canadians are foolish enough to be fooled by that, but for the benefit of the backbenchers on the Conservative side, I would like to clarify the record.

[Employment Insurance, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government continues to mislead Canadians about EI. It knows it is misleading them and dividing people. It is deliberate and it does not care.

It insults victims of this Conservative recession by suggesting that people want to be unemployed. It does not want to make it “too easy” to get EI. Does the government not understand that no Canadian wants to lose a job? They do not want their friends or neighbours to lose their jobs either. What Canadians want is the Prime Minister to lose his job.

[Employment Insurance, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the only things in the House that are shovel-ready are the answers from that minister.

When I heard the minister was making an EI change this morning, I hoped she had seen the light and had maybe decided to stop the distortions and the untruths and offer something to help the many thousands of Canadians who are victims of this Conservative recession, but no, not even close. It was a rehash a previously announced plans, once again.

Did the Conservatives standardize benefits? No. Did they bring regional fairness to EI, a national 360-hour standard? No.

[Employment Insurance, May 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government does not seem to want to let the human resources minister stand and answer any questions today. Perhaps that is because yesterday the Minister of Human Resources failed to tell the truth when she claimed that creating a universal 360-hour eligibility standard for EI would “mean that a Canadian could work for 45 days and collect EI for a year”. That is completely false.

Will the minister admit to misleading the House and, for once, tell the truth? Do unemployed Canadians not deserve at least that?

[Employment Insurance Act, May 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the Leader of the Opposition was an exception. He is such an elevated person. I apologize, it will not happen again.

The Canadian Labour Congress is calling for changes to EI. Armine Yalnizyan, from the CCPA, most recently indicated, “There is a widespread consensus across the political spectrum that the Employment Insurance Act should be changed to make the entrance requirements uniform across the country and reduce the eligibility threshold to 360 hours”.

The C.D. Howe Institute, the great champion of Liberal thought, said it was surprised the government did not do more to enhance access.

Susan Riley, of the Ottawa Citizen, said, “If the government was serious about helping the hardest hit, it would have opened access to employment insurance, along with extending benefits to those who were already covered”.

There are some amazing people who one would not normally think would support a change to EI. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which one would not think would be championing EI, indicated in its prebudget report to the finance committee that the access issue needed to be addressed. It even suggested that we needed to look at, perhaps temporarily, the two-week waiting period. The response from the government was, “We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it”. Who said that? The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said that on January 28.

Harris/Decima, which recently had the Liberals in the lead, indicated in a poll, dated March 30, that in every region of the country, across all regions, people believed the scope of employment insurance should be expanded in terms of coverage and length. It is not just what one might think of as the usual suspects.

Some people who have done a lot of work on this. The alternative federal budget had suggested a number of changes and had put some costing on it.

It seems like everybody believes that we have to change the system, that there needs to be access by people who need it. The only ones who seem not to believe it are members of the government, not their spouses though. We heard recently that the wife of the Minister of Finance had some issues with him, that EI should be improved, that EI was punitive to the province of Ontario.

The government, which prides itself on dividing Canadians, is now breaking up families. It is dividing families among themselves. The Minister of Finance is clinging vainly to the hope that nothing will be changed. His wife is usually right, in my experience. She is saying that it should be opened up, that it is not fair to Ontario.

It is very clear that something has to happen. This is not a light subject; it is a very serious one.

I will read an email I received, which I got a kick out of. It states, “I heard you on TV talking about EI (employment insurance) and I was impressed with your arguments. I have never been a person who believes in a lot of what you refer to as social infrastructure, whatever that is, but to me EI should be opened up, at least for now. Why won't the government do anything without being forced into it?”

That is a very good question. Last week the TD Bank made recommendations, The Chamber of Commerce, the C.D. Howe Institute, the CCPA, the CLC, the CAW, the Canadian Council on Social Development, the Conference Board of Canada, everybody who has looked at this are saying people are hurting. One would not think the government would be as blind to that as it is.

Canadians are hurting. People are living paycheque to paycheque, even when they are employed. Now they do not have jobs and they do not have savings. They have not had the benefit of a member of Parliament's salary or a big business salary. A lot of working people are going paycheque to paycheque. When they are put out of work, it is hard enough to have to wait two weeks, but then to be told they will not get EI at all is really shameful.

On top of that, we have heard about delays across the country. All my colleagues have heard about people who have had to wait longer than 28 days, in some cases 40, 50 or 60 days. The member from Madawaska—Restigouche, the member for Cape Breton—Canso and a number of Liberals in the House have raised this issue. It is a serious subject.

EI needs to be opened up. If we are not going to open it up now, when are we going to open it up? People have paid into it for years and they have the right to collect it. It is the very least that the government should for them. Instead of giving them access, it is giving them arrogance and that is no longer good enough. We need better.