Pat Martin

[Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, May 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see we will have an opportunity on Tuesday to test the interest of the House of Commons in the bill put forward by the member for Halifax, Bill C-419, which would amend the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act to give the right to organize and unionize to our Parliament Hill employees.

Other representatives from the NDP have spoken about the importance of the bill. It is something to which we are ideologically committed. The NDP is very proud to say that we are the only political party in the House of Commons today that has a unionized workforce, represented by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, Local 232. We can speak from experience and can give some comfort and solace to those members from other parties who are apprehensive about the idea of extending the right to organize to Hill staff.

I do not really think we should have to have this debate in this day and age. Frankly, the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively and even the right to withhold services in the event of an impasse are basic tenets of any modern democracy, certainly basic tenets of any western civilization. That much is not in question.

The only reservations we have heard put forward by members are perhaps that they may lose some of the flexibility they believe they need because of the unique workplace in which we all work. I believe we can provide some comfort or solace to those people who are apprehensive by looking at our own experience.

We have a unionized workforce. Our staff have the same challenges that the staff of any member of Parliament may have. They need flexibility in our workplace, but nothing in our collective agreement precludes that flexibility if someone has to work through lunch or stay late. What our collective agreement does preclude is the exploitation of those same workers by members of Parliament who may get too busy to pay due attention to workplace conditions in their office, which is their workplace.

This place has a terrible reputation for its treatment of employees, and this goes back many years. A lot of members of Parliament tell employees that it is a privilege for them to work on Parliament Hill, and it is, but they use that as justification to pay them terribly. We pay our employees a living wage, a fair wage. It is our belief that fair wages benefit the whole community and that there are many good reasons to provide fair compensation, obviously above and beyond any moral and ethical reasons. However we do hear horror stories from other offices.

I was not surprised when our employees felt they needed protection from this exploitation. As members of Parliament get so busy and so caught up in their work, they often forget the human aspects of the employees who work for them and the fact that these people have lives and deserve fair compensation, fair working conditions, fair working rules, fair benefits, fair holidays, et cetera. That is the point here.

I am very proud that the member for Halifax has brought this issue to the forefront. I know the history of this issue has been outlined by other speakers and I will not spend a lot of time on it other than to say that since 1986 all the elements have been in place. It has just been up to the ruling party to give royal assent to phase two and phase three of the Parliamentary Employment Staff Relations Act.

I do not want to be critical in the time I have but I notice the Minister of Labour is listening to the debate, and I am pleased to see she is giving her time to listen to it. However the Liberal Party in another example, with the rural route mail couriers, has seen fit to deny the basic right to organize to that group of workers as well.

There is very little justification, although we do hear people standing up and saying it, for not allowing our employees to unionize. We cannot really make the case that it would grind Parliament to a halt and therefore do a disservice to the country, because in other situations, for instance, firemen or policemen, they do have the right to organize and they do have the right to bargain collectively. In those instances they do not have the right to withhold their services. There is some other type of binding third party arbitration that takes the place of a strike or a lockout.

That is something that can be dealt with if the case can be made that Parliament, especially during times of war, et cetera, cannot be stopped because of labour unrest, but it is certainly no excuse for not allowing these basic freedoms to the many hardworking Canadians who work on Parliament Hill.

In my own experience as a labour leader for the carpenters' union, I had the opportunity to organize many workplaces, speaking with workers and employees in their kitchens. We had to sneak around many times in order to organize a workplace. I do not think the employees on Parliament Hill deserve to be treated that way when their employer is the Government of Canada, the Parliament of Canada, the members of Parliament, who surely accept that Canadians believe in the right to free collective bargaining.

The rigidity that some members fear in a collective agreement, as I said before, is no excuse. I am holding a recent Hill Times article in which some staff employees of members of Parliament were interviewed. One individual works for one of our members of Parliament and he points out that it is not unusual for him and his colleagues to have to be very flexible in their working rules. He also points out the benefit of having an avenue of recourse if there are disagreements with an employer, whether it is about holiday time or working conditions or working rules.

Being a unionized employee is not all about money. Frankly, negotiating the actual salary and wage is something that happens once every two or three years when people bargain the terms of their collective agreement. Being unionized employees means knowing they have an avenue of recourse that does not put their jobs in jeopardy if they do have a comment or a criticism to make of the work rules, or a simple avenue to air their views and their opinions.

We believe it is wrong to deny these basic freedoms. I can point out some recent examples on the Hill when Hill employees have had difficulties when they were laid off without cause, for instance. Their only avenue of recourse was going to the courts or, I suppose, asking for an audience with the Speaker and asking him to intervene. That system cannot be relied on. We need a better process than that.

We heard about one member of Parliament not too long ago who laid off one of his staff because she became pregnant. The woman had no avenue of recourse. She was not covered by the Canada Labour Code nor was she covered by employment standards legislation. She could not go to the Ontario Labour Relations Board. This woman had no one to advocate on her behalf other than going to the courts, and that is ridiculous. That is why employment situations need a process by which grieved employees can seek justice. Surely in a case like that it is terribly unjust treatment.

There is another example. Some members of Parliament lay off their staff over the summer months because they do not need them. Some of these individuals are long term employees. It is a terribly unfair thing to do in order to save a few dollars in their budgets.

I will end by saying that I am very proud to be involved with this initiative. I again compliment the member for Halifax for tirelessly bringing this issue forward again and again. Hopefully it is starting to resonate with enough other members of Parliament so they will see that fair wages benefit the whole community and Canadian workers have a right to be represented by the union of their choice. It is our duty to be an example to the public in that way.

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is not just the Assembly of First Nations that rejects the first nations governance act. Fully 95% of the presenters to the standing committee, including many non-aboriginal representatives from civil society, vigorously oppose it.

All of the mainstream churches, many respected academics, law professors, bar associations, and even a former minister of Indian Affairs, testified that in their opinion Bill C-7 infringes upon constitutionally recognized aboriginal and treaty rights, section 15 of the charter and international conventions regarding the right to self-determination.

Reasonable people who have studied the bill have legitimate concerns about changing the legal status and capacity of first nations and about enhancing rather than reducing the discretionary authority of the minister, but whether we accept or reject these concerns, the only justification I need to oppose this piece of legislation is that first nations from coast to coast have told the standing committee in no uncertain terms that they do not want it.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, May 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to say a few words about Bill C-28, the budget implementation act.

I do not know if it is common knowledge but my riding of Winnipeg Centre is the third poorest riding in the country by whatever economic measurement we use, either by the incidence of poverty per the percentage of people living in poverty or by the average family income. By either of those measurements I am not proud to say that my riding of Winnipeg Centre, the core area of the inner city of Winnipeg, ranks third in the country. In fact, 47% of all the families in my riding live below the poverty line and 52% of all the children in the core area of Winnipeg live below the poverty line. It is even more severe in using that family income measurement.

I do not say this to complain or file a grievance of any sort but only to emphasize that we watch the introduction of new budgets with great interest. When so many of the people in my riding are marginalized or live close to the margin, government spending becomes key and paramount in their quality of life issues.

We looked forward to a return to social spending within the last budget with some optimism. As my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre, the riding next to mine, pointed out very capably and passionately, the budget was a great disappointment in many respects if we were looking for a return to social spending, but I am not going to dwell on that.

With the limited amount of time I have, I would like to point out two anomalies in the income tax system that could have been addressed and should have been addressed in the budget. Both are outrageous and both are unfair, especially to lower income, marginalized people such as those living in poverty in my riding.

First, surely Parliament never intended that breaking the law should be tax deductible when the Income Tax Act was crafted. Because of a 1999 Supreme Court ruling, businesses incredibly can deduct fines, penalties or levies from their taxes as a business expense provided the penalty was incurred in the course of earning income. Most Canadians would find that absurd. I find it outrageous. It is not only bad public policy to reward bad behaviour but it undermines the deterrent value of a fine, surely, if the guilty parties can have their fines automatically reduced by writing them off on their income taxes. It is crazy.

I have been badgering the government for years to plug that outrageous tax loophole. The whole issue could be resolved with a simple amendment to the Income Tax Act to make it clear that any fine or levy imposed by law on a taxpayer is not to be considered a tax deductible expense.

That is what the United States did 35 years ago and we have failed to do it. As a result, it is open season for anyone who incurs a fine, and that fine can be quite broad. In fact, chartered accountants across the country are advertising this on their web pages. Fully 36 chartered accountant firms we have found are advertising this on their websites. “Penalties, fines, we can help”, it says, “it should be noted that the Supreme Court is very clear that this case is not limited to the situation that it originally ruled on”. They say that other penalties incurred for the purpose of earning income, including GST penalties, provincial sales tax penalties, parking fines and it goes beyond that to workplace safety and health violations, environmental pollution, environmental degradation fines are tax deductible. They should not be.

I asked the revenue minister to address this issue back in 2002 as soon as I learned about it. It was actually the attorney general of Manitoba who wrote me and said “Can this be true? Can this be for real? Are you telling me that fines are tax deductible?”

I could not believe it, so I investigated it and sure enough, it was true. I asked a question of the revenue minister back in 2002. I cannot find the question now but I said that I could not deduct my parking tickets, so why could a business deduct its fines? At the time the revenue minister, to her credit, agreed and was reasonable about it. She virtually agreed with me that this had to be looked into because it did not sound right.

Six months passed and the government did nothing about it, so I asked her again. This time she hedged the question and said that it was really a matter for the Minister of Finance. I asked the Minister of Finance when he was going to correct this outrageous tax loophole. He said that we would be pleased with this year's budget, that the answer to my question would be found in this year's budget. Well, it was not there. The government decided not to plug that outrageous tax loophole.

Here is an example. Last November the courts penalized Canada Steamship Lines with the largest fine ever issued for ship source pollution, but the deterrence value of this fine clearly is undermined because our income tax laws allow CSL to write off the penalty as a business expense. We do not know if it will because that is private tax information and we do not have access to that information, but it could and many others do.

I can see why the former finance minister was loath to plug this outrageous tax loophole, but what about the current finance minister? What excuse does he have to not plug this outrageous loophole? That offends me and I raise it now and serve notice to members on the government side that I am not going to let this issue die.

I tried to introduce a private member's bill to this effect. The House leader blocked it, saying that to deny this tax loophole to criminal behaviour was tantamount to raising taxes and therefore it was a money matter, and therefore a ways and means motion was needed to precede the private member's bill. What an absurd argument, but it was upheld by the Speaker, I regret to say. That is the first issue that should have been addressed in the budget.

The second thing, with the little time I have left, is that many people would be surprised to learn that the highest taxed Canadians are not millionaires, nor are they people who make over $100,000 a year. People who make over $100,000 a year are in the highest category at 46%. We should know that, as that is the bracket in which MPs find themselves. The highest taxed Canadians are actually low income seniors whose earnings are so low that they qualify for the guaranteed income supplement.

Here is what happens to low income seniors. Anything they earn above the basic deduction is taxed at 26%, but dollar for dollar they lose their guaranteed income supplement at a rate of 50%. We are talking low, low income here. If seniors are lucky enough to enjoy some dividends from small investments they may have made during their lives which supplement their retirement incomes, but they are receiving some guaranteed income supplement, they are losing that at 50%, plus they are being taxed at 26%, for a total of a 76% tax bracket.

Low income seniors are in the highest tax bracket in the country and that is wrong. They are arguably the poorest people in society. Anybody who is poor enough to qualify for the guaranteed income supplement is very poor. However, because of an anomaly in the Income Tax Act, they are paying taxes at 76% on any dollars they make above the basic tax exemption. That is absurd. That is as outrageous as the tax write-off for business corporate fines.

Both of those things could have been and should have been addressed in the budget. We made the government aware of both of those issues and it consciously chose not to address them.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, aboriginal people from coast to coast have made it perfectly clear that they do not accept the first nations governance act and yet the minister continues to plough ahead ignoring their concerns, and it is not just first nations who oppose it. All the mainstream churches, constitutional experts, the Canadian Bar Association and other representatives of civil society all agree that Bill C-7 infringes upon constitutionally recognized aboriginal and treaty rights.

Would the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development listen to first nations, withdraw Bill C-7, send it back to the drawing board and come back with a piece of legislation that first nations and parliamentarians can support?

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, April 10th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased on behalf of the constituents in the riding of Winnipeg Centre to say a few words on this important bill at this stage.

Bill C-13 deals with reproductive technologies. The debate on the bill addresses an important area as Canadians approach the whole issue of reproductive technology. As we have heard throughout the debate, there are many compelling reasons to support the regulation of reproductive technology.

We are all familiar with recent sensational stories about human cloning, about eggs being sold over the Internet, about acrimonious lawsuits over surrogacy. Even last year we heard the Raelians claim that they had successfully cloned a human being. People in my riding want to know what the government plans to do to look after their interests in light of such interesting debate going on.

Even though it is the tip of the iceberg, we believe there is unregulated research and unregulated activity going on in this field. I am sure all members of the House agree that others around the globe are absolutely committed to this type of research. We want to make sure that Canadian interests are not only represented, but are protected.

We are living in a time when the term “designer babies” has become part of the North American lexicon. Parents are selecting the biological traits of their children. Internet sites compete in the trade of celebrity reproductive materials, while countless others profit from those Canadians who are more than willing to buy access to any healthy eggs or sperm that might assist them in their drive to have children. Even more worrisome perhaps is that gender selection has become topical, with all sorts of new rationales being put forward in its justification.

Many of us are now very familiar with some of the less sensational personal stories that have come to our attention as members of Parliament. We deal with families that are dealing with the issue of infertility. Stories of joy have come to my attention, as have stories of heartbreak, as well as sacrifice and pain during the whole infertility treatment and the process of parents trying to achieve reproductive success.

Reproductive technologies have become widespread in Canada, yet unfortunately they operate beyond the reach of government regulations. Therefore, we are pleased to be able to address this today and have this long overdue debate.

Unfortunately, the technology has leaped ahead by leaps and bounds without comment or without intervention by the federal government, in spite of the fact that it was over 10 years ago that the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies released its report. We have to ask why it has taken so long for us to have this very necessary debate.

I would like to list some of the concerns of the NDP regarding the bill. One issue is that during the committee stage the member for Winnipeg North Centre worked very closely with members from other parties on that committee to move amendments and to garner support for what they considered to be important amendments. They thought they had succeeded in a number of areas to break through or build some consensus on that committee regarding pretty fundamental issues in Bill C-13 that speaks to the creation of the assisted human reproduction agency.

A very fundamental principle arose. In seeing that human reproduction could be viewed disproportionately as a woman's issue or an issue that pertains to women's health, our representative on the committee, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, put forward a motion that there should be gender parity on the board of this newly established agency. She thought she had broad support for that until the vote came down.

When that particular amendment was voted on in the House of Commons, it did not succeed. We thought that the member for St. Paul's was on board with this issue and the issue of women's rights. We expected her support. We were very disappointed to find out that my colleague did not get the support for this important amendment. In fact, I have a list of how the vote went on Motion No. 71. As I say, we were very disappointed that was not recognized as a priority issue.

If, as the government claims, the bill is concerned with women's health, we argue what better way to give that claim leverage for enforcement purposes than to state outright that the precautionary principle should and must be the governing principle. Yet every time my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre raised this amendment to entrench the precautionary principle to ensure that the principle is imprinted in the legislation, our efforts were voted down by Liberal members of the committee.

The NDP wanted to require the federal government to ensure that reproductive technologies and drugs and procedures specifically are proven safe before they are introduced and that the risks and benefits of any treatment are fully made available and that the evaluation of reproductive health services include women's experiences. Yet it was frustrating, I am told, for the NDP to try to have these views succeed at the committee level.

I point out the contrast that even though the chair of that committee regarding Bill C-13 at the time, the member for St. Paul's could not see fit to support these reasonable amendments. She has recently, as reported in today's newspaper in fact, been the outspoken champion of the rights of standing committees to have some real genuine decision making authority in this place. Many of us have been frustrated by the work of committees. Many of us have felt that partisan politics and whipped votes have spoiled the opportunity for committees to do meaningful work.

As recently as yesterday in the government operations committee that same member for St. Paul's was the one saying that the members would not go any further in the clause by clause analysis of Bill C-25 until such time as the government released all the pertinent documents that they felt that they needed. In that case they were cabinet documents regarding the public service act that they were making reference too.

I see a contradiction in that on the committee dealing with the public service act the member is the champion of free speech and the champion of independent activity for members of the committee yet on the bill dealing with something as critical as reproductive health and reproductive technologies, the member was not willing to go that far.

A fundamental concern for New Democrats in this whole legislative process has to do with the commercialization and commodification of reproductive technologies. Many Canadians have expressed concern from the very beginning of the formal public dialogue about reproductive technologies. Back in the 1980s this very issue was raised. Concerns were expressed about the government agenda being driven by powerful biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries whose primary obligation is to their shareholders and not really to women's health.

There is really nothing in the bill particularly relating to the control of research results that distinguishes between the government's position and the position of these industries which stand to profit greatly from people's very real desires to have children. It is capitalizing on people's unfortunate situations that they are unable to have children naturally and are seeking reproductive technologies in the case of infertility at least and so on.

We raised the issue of patents for instance. We do not believe it is proper that human life should be a patentable commodity ever. We should never allow it to happen. There is a need to ensure that public access to the benefit of research should be available without a profit motive being built into it. For us, patenting still remains a critical issue.

Patenting remains for the government a separate issue, but for most Canadians and certainly to New Democrats, questions of research and the control and application of research results are inexorably linked.

Bill C-13, while necessary, has to be crafted in away such as to be vigorously enforced if it is to accurately reflect the wishes of most Canadians who do not want to see the commercialization of human life and human genes or human tissue ever turned into a profit making initiative.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

Somebody changed his heart for him.

[Points of Order, April 3rd, 2003]

That is not accurate.

[Points of Order, April 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add a couple of details to the intervention made by the member for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot.

He is accurate and what he says is correct. Last night at the standing committee on aboriginal affairs, I had the floor and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs intervened to ask that the vote be now put. The only difference in what I would like to share with you is that the chair ruled that out of order. The chair said that the question could not be put in standing committees. However he then said that if we did not like that ruling, we could challenge the chair.

At that time, the government side members of the committee challenged the chair and the chair stepped out. An alternate was put in, the vote was taken and the wishes of the parliamentary secretary were in fact passed.

The point I would like you to consider, Mr. Speaker, is the chair did not really have the right to be subject to a challenge because he was only upholding the standing rules. He was not making a ruling or an interpretation. He was merely stating what the standing rules were, subject to Standing Order 116, which is the rules of the House of Commons apply in the absence of anything to the contrary.

It was out of order to even have a vote on challenging the chair or to uphold the ruling of the chair. What I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, very simply is to intervene, through a review of what took place at last night's meeting, and to uphold the ruling of the chair when he ruled the parliamentary secretary out of order. That would mean that I had the floor when this intervention took place, that I should still have the floor to carry on speaking on the motion, which was properly before the committee, and that all subsequent business that took place after this intervention would be rendered null and void because it was not an order.

I would ask you to rule then that we revert back to the period of time prior to the intervention of the parliamentary secretary and again to uphold the ruling of the chair that the parliamentary secretary was out of order to call the question and cease debate on the motion. One cannot call the question at a standing committee, as cited by the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot.

[Income Tax Act, March 31st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to add my support to the member for Dartmouth and the worthwhile issue that she has raised in the House today. I want to thank her for her ongoing and longstanding commitment to the arts and to those who create in this country.

I am disappointed by some of the views that I have been hearing from members from other parties. There seems to be an unwillingness to entertain this idea with the importance we would like to see it given. We believe that some of the hon. members who have spoken are missing the point. Some are using this as a vehicle to raise completely unrelated issues and others are being far too narrow in their scope in trying to view the issue being raised by the member for Dartmouth and in recognizing the importance of arts and culture in our society.

The hon. member pointed out that we live in the richest and most powerful civilization in the world. Yet in Canada, we are not paying adequate deference to the contribution that artists and those who create make to our society.

The point has been made that other worthwhile organizations or pursuits would also be seeking comparable recognition in our tax laws. It is failing to reflect the unique contribution that artists make to the cultural fabric of our society and that is where I believe the arguments put forward by the other parties fall short and fail. I wish the arguments were not so narrow.

The hon. member for Dartmouth pointed out the example of Ireland, where the arts and culture are valued and treasured in a passionate way. That country saw fit to allow the first $15,000 of copyright income to be a tax deduction. The impact on its economy or revenue base was only $14 million Canadian a year, a paltry sum in Ireland.

We believe that showing recognition would be so meaningful to those who create, but so insignificant in the global revenue generating capacity of Canada. We are in a surplus situation. In fact, we are in a $100 billion surplus situation that the government has seen fit to give away in tax cuts, but in its zeal to provide tax cuts it failed to provide for the important contribution that artists and creators make.

I wish we could see broader support for the motion in the House.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 28th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to be recognized and appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-28.

It was my intention to ask the hon. member to expand somewhat on the NISA program and the $4 billion that he maintains could be put to better use or put into the pockets of farmers instead of being lost to the bureaucracy. Even though I represent an area of downtown Winnipeg, I would not want to see an agricultural assistance program being used to create bureaucratic jobs or to do anything other than to provide much needed income maintenance for beleaguered prairie farmers.

I appreciated the hon. member's comments. He was bang on. Perhaps in another speech he will be able to enlighten us more about the five pillars he made reference to.

I would like to speak at some length to the last point the Alliance member spoke about, the EI program.

The federal government is very proud of its announcement of $100 billion in tax cuts. As the member pointed out, it seems that any of the government's good news announcements are sequenced and timed to come into play over a period of three years or five years. The amount is not as huge an amount of money as people might expect when spread out over that timeframe. The erosion of that amount of money during that period of time due to inflation also has to be factored in. That $100 billion will not really mean as much five years from now as it did when it was announced. The government is trying to get the maximum political bang for its buck.

We should point out to people who are listening today where that $100 billion the government has put into tax cuts came from. I can say that $45 billion of it can be traced to the pockets of hardworking Canadians and their employers. As people should know, the EI fund is strictly made up of contributions from employees and employers. The federal government puts nothing into that fund. Canadians have clearly overpaid into the EI fund to the tune of $45 billion cumulatively over the last couple of years.

If there is a surplus in the EI fund, there are two ways of looking at it. One legitimate argument was put forward by the Alliance that premiums should be reduced. We are paying in too much in terms of what is being paid out in benefits. The flip side of that coin, the NDP's argument is that benefits should be increased or the eligibility requirement should be lowered so more people who pay in would be eligible. Either one of those arguments is legitimate.

What is not legitimate is to use that money for some purpose other than income maintenance for unemployed people. I would go further and say that to deduct something from a person's paycheque for a specific purpose and then to use that money for something completely different is out and out fraud. At the very least it is a breach of trust.

A trust relationship has been created with that individual. When that individual allowed the government to deduct money from his or her paycheque for a specific purpose, a trust relationship was formed. That person trusted that the government would hold that money until such time as he or she became unemployed and needed it. To do anything else with that money is a breach of trust. To use money paid into the unemployment insurance fund to build roads, or for health care, or to give tax cuts to somebody, is a breach of the fiduciary trust entered into with the Government of Canada as employees.

I cannot emphasize enough our continued disappointment, shock and horror at the flagrant misuse and abuse of what was supposed to be an insurance program for unemployed workers.

I appreciate that there are still MPs in the House of Commons who raised that as an aspect of their comments on the budget. To not do so would be to resign ourselves to the fact that the Liberals have managed to get away with something again. Some of us are not prepared to do that.

To put in context the size of the surplus, I am fond of reminding people that the EI program is running a surplus of $700 million a month, not per year, per month. Every month that ticks by, people are contributing $700 million more than is being paid out in income maintenance to unemployed workers. Talk about a cash cow. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving.

The Liberal government cannot believe how lucky it is. It seems to have gone under the radar on this one. Most Canadians are not upset about it. We are upset. Those of us who know about it in the House of Commons are upset. We are trying to alert Canadians to the fact that they are being gouged, but seemingly the public has not really got up in arms.

Unemployed people are up in arms, but unemployment is relatively low these days with 7% unemployed. That is not enough to form a mass movement of people to object to the abuse of the fund. Unfortunately when Canadians do find themselves in the unfortunate position of being unemployed, they will also learn that under the current EI rules, less than 40% of them will be eligible for any income maintenance whatsoever. The EI rules are structured in such a way that only 40% of unemployed people qualify. What kind of insurance fund is that?

What if people were obliged to pay into a house insurance fund with mandatory contributions and if their house burned down, they would have a 40% chance of collecting any benefit?