Michael Savage

[Employment Insurance Act, May 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-280. I want to congratulate my colleague for introducing it.

I have a few things I want to say, but I cannot let go unchallenged what the parliamentary secretary has read from his speaking notes, provided by some un-named person in the lobby, which he picked up on the way in here.

He talked about the cuts that were made in the 1990s. He is older than I am, so he is old enough to recall the circumstance of Canada back in 1993, when his former Conservative government skulked out of town with its tail between its legs, leaving a $48 billion annual deficit, a debt that it had built up. When Mr. Trudeau left, that debt was $200 billion. By the time that government was finished, it was $500 billion.

Maybe the people in the lobby are not as good as I thought they were at putting these notes out. He should know that the cuts began with Mr. Mulroney in 1990. It was in 1990 when the federal government walked away from EI and said that employers and employees could carry the whole weight. That government did not want any part of it. That was when those people were building up the deficit.

There are a lot of history books that can tell us the difference between 1995 and 2008, but I will tell the members the difference. Back then we were coming out of a Conservative recession into a Liberal recovery. We are now coming out of a Liberal recovery and into a Conservative recession. Back then there was not one person in the country talking about stimulus. People were talking about debt. We were being called a third world economy because we were so far in debt.

Changes were made. Some of us liked them and some of us did not. The fact is we had a lot of problems in the country that we had to be dealt with and that is what we did back in 1995-96.

Members of his party, his ancestors, including the current Prime Minister, did not think we went far enough. They wanted further cuts. The predecessor to the current Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development said the cuts were not deep enough.

Let me come back to today. Instead of people talking about paying down the debt, as they did in the 1990s, they are now talking about stimulus. My colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing mentioned stimulus and Ian Lee from the Sprott School of Business. There are three major ways of stimulating the economy.

I see my colleague from Niagara West—Glanbrook, the very learned chair of the HRSD committee, is nodding in agreement with what I am saying. He is amazed at what the parliamentary secretary said. He cannot believe it.

If we look at the three major ways to stimulate an economy, one is to provide tax breaks. However, tax breaks stimulate the people who do not need the stimulus. According to the Caledon Institute, tax breaks in the last budget will go to people making $150,000, including my colleagues. We will get $483 in tax breaks. A single income person with two kids receives nothing. Is that stimulus? Most MPs do not even know what they pay in taxes except for the very month when they have to file. They are not going to spend the money.

The people who need the money are the people who have nothing else on which to live. They get the money and they spend it, and it is a 1.6 turnover in the economy. That is how an economy is stimulated. It is helpful to the people who need the money as well. It is way better than tax breaks and a much better return than infrastructure.

The parliamentary secretary talked about our leader adopting a new position. From January 29 on, our leader was not even officially the leader, but he was already talking about EI. He said, and I am quoting from the paper now, “If the government fails on these accountability tests, including employment insurance, a confidence vote could trigger an election”. He said that on January 29, some time ago. Now he has called upon the Prime Minister to implement a national standard for employment insurance with a temporary 360 hour threshold for eligibility.

A letter appeared this week in La Presse in Montreal, written by Pierre Céré, who is a champion of workers in Quebec. I will just quote a bit. He said, “The EI system must become a program that provides economic security and thus the dignity of workers who lose their jobs and who are temporarily unemployed. The only partisanship, as we know it, is in that fight. That is why we do not hesitate to acknowledge the position of Mr. Ignatieff and encourage him in this direction”. However. it is not only—

[Persons with Disabilities, May 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, May is Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month. A number of parliamentarians are spending the day, except for question period, in wheelchairs due to the leadership of the Canadian Paraplegic Association.

Today alone there will be three new spinal cord injuries in Canada. There are 1,100 per year. The highest incidence is in young men between the ages of 18 and 24 years, but recently there has been an increase in injuries to seniors. This is not an issue of politics but of people.

We need to do more to assume inclusion of employment, of access and of opportunity. People with disabilities have much higher rates of poverty, much higher than should be the case in a country as wealthy as Canada.

It is time for Canada to invest more in improving the lives of Canadians with disabilities. We can do it through investment, we can do it through legislation, but we must do it for individuals to achieve their potential and for Canada to achieve its potential.

I salute the CPA and its work to help Canadians achieve independence and full community participation. Next year is the 65th anniversary of the Canadian Paraplegic Association. Let us have 65 parliamentarians in wheelchairs next year.

Congratulations to the CPA.

[Employment Insurance, May 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, excuses, denials and misleading statistics do not feed families and they do not pay the rent. The government has failed Canadians. The government has failed to manage the economy, failed to create jobs, and failed to extend EI to those who need it.

How can the government be so callous in turning its back on the people of Canada? Its arrogant refusal to step up and extend EI access is a national disgrace from coast to coast to coast.

When will it stop the excuses, give up the denials, accept responsibility and extend EI to the victims of this Conservative recession?

[Employment Insurance, May 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, EI access needs to be fixed. Who says that? Just about everybody: policy think tanks, poverty advocates, working people, the chamber of commerce, the TD Bank, the C.D. Howe Institute, provincial premiers. Even the finance minister's wife knows it.

The Conservative government stands alone in its mean-spirited isolation, unwilling to assist unemployed Canadians in their hour of need, unable to admit that they have failed workers, unable to put people ahead of politics.

Why will the Conservatives not apologize for their mistake, step up for Canadians and fix access for the victims of this Conservative recession?

[May 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I hear my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, talk about a system that we think should be built in Canada. His party talks about it being institutionalized and talks about this child care system the way that many in his party talked about medicare 40 years ago. They said that it was a terrible thing, that it would never work and that it would cost money.

We have the lowest child care access rates in the industrialized world. If that is something to be proud of, then we have done something wrong.

Does the parliamentary secretary still believe that we cannot afford to invest in early learning and child care? I do not think that we can afford not to invest in early learning and child care.

Thank heavens we have the Monica Lysacks, the Jody Dallaires, the Martha Friendlys, the Susan Wolstenholmes in Halifax and others who understand this, such as Janet Austin who hosted the meeting for us in Vancouver. They get something that the government does not. We should be investing in our children. We should not be making excuses.

[May 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow up a question that I asked back before Christmas. The occasion was the third anniversary of the cancelling of the child care agreements, which had been signed by the member for York Centre and the provinces and territories around the country. Because the three year funding had been phased out, the city of Toronto announced that 6,000 spaces would be gone as a result of that cancellation.

The point is that Canada is failing on child care. It is failing its citizenry and it is particularly failing its children. In a report released in December, Canada ranked last out of 25 OECD nations on 10 key benchmarks. Those benchmarks were further to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Canada is failing on the benchmarks of early learning and child care.

In 2004-05 we had a brief hope when the Liberal government, under Paul Martin, brought in these chid care agreements and the member for York Centre signed them. That was dashed when the Conservative government came forward in 2006. It cancelled those agreements and replaced them with the universal child care benefit of $100 a month. Everybody can use $100 a month. There is no question about that.

However, I want to refer to a book that I picked up last week called Beyond Child's Play, when I met with some child care advocates in Vancouver on Friday.

Speaking to the universal child care benefit, in a wonderful article by Jody Dallaire and Lynell Anderson, they said:

While families need adequate incomes, they also need services to be available and affordable in their communities. The UCCB does not build or sustain child care services.

That is very true. Nobody would argue that many families need $100 a month, but it is a fallacy and a fraud to suggest that this is child care. It is not. We need a system in our country. Maybe some people would say that it is too expensive to have a system in Canada. I would like to quote from the same article again. It says:

Some say that, in uncertain times, Canada cannot afford to invest in child care. We say, nothing could be further from the truth. Child care services are an essential part of every community's economic and social infrastructure—an economic stimulus with long-term benefits for Canada.

There is no question among people who know what is happening in child care in our country that we need to have a system. We need to build a system. There are countries in the OECD that have a system. In Canada people like Monica Lysack, Jody Dallaire, Martha Friendly and many others understand this and are trying to get this message across.

What kind of an outcry would there be in any community if an eight-year-old boy or girl was refused entry into elementary school? It would be on the front page of the local paper. However, every day in every community in Canada, children cannot get early learning and child care. Why does Canada have very high rates of illiteracy for a country as wealthy as it is? We are not maximizing the human potential of all children. We need to do that.

I would like to close with another quotation from an article by Martha Friendly. She said:

While many would say that a recession is not the time to be putting forward demands for a new social program, others would follow Barack Obama's lead to argue that the choice between “getting our economy moving now and rebuilding it over the long term” is a false choice—that leaders need to be able to walk and chew gum by ensuring that the demonstrated potential for early childhood education and care to contribute to a prosperous Canada is realized.

The government does not realize it, but the time will come when a more enlightened government comes into this place and makes early learning and child care a reality for Canadian families.

[Employment Insurance, May 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this Conservative recession is destroying Canadian families, many of whom cannot collect EI. Rather than establishing a national standard for all claimants, the government's response is to tell newly employed Canadians to wait and hope that enough of the people in their region lose their jobs and then maybe they can all qualify for help.

They have been failed by the government, which has not ensured that EI is available when it is needed most. The question is simple. Surely, the time has come. When is the government going to fix EI eligibility?

[Social Programs, April 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, there is no answer on that side, and people with disabilities deserve better than that.

They cannot defend the crass partisanship of how this program has been managed: by their own figures, 94% to Conservative ridings. It is inexcusable. It is easy to see why members of the human resources committee, including the parliamentary secretary, scrambled to avoid an investigation of this program. They know the truth.

The program with such nobly stated goals actually stinks of political interference. It is an abdication of responsibility. How can the government justify such partisan funding?

[Social Programs, April 30th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the enabling accessibility fund was designed to assist persons with disabilities. If any program should be beyond the partisan cronyism of the government, it should be this one.

Yesterday the minister was unable to tell the House why 94% of all funding went to Conservative ridings, including the only two approved major projects in the country. It is beneath contempt for the government to play politics with this program for people who need this assistance so urgently.

Now that she has had 24 hours to reflect on this, can the minister explain why 94% of the funding ended up in Conservative ridings?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, April 30th, 2009]

With regard to the employment insurance program, what are the monthly statistical breakdowns for waiting periods for processing employment claims for each processing centre for the months of December 2008, January 2009 and February 2009?