Rodger Cuzner

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join in the debate today.

I am a little disappointed with the government's start on the debate. I would hope that we would use this day in the House to help a real situation for many Canadians who find themselves with fewer dollars coming into their household as a result of the changes that have been made in EI.

On a cautionary note, this is only the beginning. Some industries, like the fishery, have wound down. Agricultural industries and the people in those seasonal industries are still busy. Some tourism operators are just winding down. When they look for some part-time workers for fall events or to grade harvests, whatever it might be, they will find a similar situation.

We are closer to the beginning of the problem than we are to the end. Let us hope that we can focus, as members of Parliament today, on trying to help all Canadians, especially this group of Canadians, who are being placed in harm's way by losing that amount of money from their weekly pay packets.

I am not really encouraged by the comments from the two government members who spoke so far on the issue and who said that Canadians were always better off working. Yes, Canadians are always better off working. Canadians are better off making a higher wage than a lower wage. Canadians are better off being healthy than not being healthy. Just because they are better off being healthy, we do not close off health services and shut down hospitals. If the Conservatives are stating that Canadians are better off working, they are implying that Canadians who receive EI benefits do so because they are lazy.

I hear from the Conservatives across the way that is not it. Let us deal with the motion and let us fix the problems today, because people are being hurt. Of course people are better off when they are working, but this is when they have no work or they are only able to get small amounts of work.

When the Conservatives made this first change, to much fanfare, there were a number of different aspects that came out in the omnibus bill and about five impacted EI. Two specifically were pilot projects. One was best weeks and the second was working while on claim.

I am very happy to say I will be splitting my time with the member for Beauséjour, who will enlighten the House about a couple of other aspects of the concerns we are raising, and I know all members are looking forward to his comments.

The three other aspects that the Conservatives changed were of great concern to me and I spoke against them, but I spoke in favour of these two particular changes. I said that I would commend the government on those. The best weeks, so far we think it actually got that one right.

The Conservatives did not say anything at all about taking away the allowable earnings aspect of working while on claim. They said that they would increase the amount an EI recipient could earn from 40% to 50%, a little more to take away a disincentive, and I thought that was a great idea. However, the devil is absolutely in the details. Those details are hurting low-income earners who are trying to provide for their families and to get by.

The Conservatives took away the allowable earnings. Rather than trying to fix the problem, we have seen a continual regurgitation of talking points by the minister. It has been absolutely dishonest. The minister said twice last week that every dollar recipients made after $75 while working on claim would be clawed back dollar for dollar, and that is not even close to being the truth. She spoke as if $75 was the maximum an EI recipient could earn. Instead, $75 was the minimum they could earn. If they were only earning $100 a week on EI and they made $100 a week on a part-time job, the maximum they could make would be 40%. That would have been $40. However, with the old system, the minimum that recipients could actually keep was $75. They could keep 40%. The minister is trying to make it appear that $75 is the maximum.

The misinformation that the minister has shared over the course of this debate is totally egregious. She had every opportunity to tell us that. When the budget discussions were on, she said nothing about taking away the allowable earnings. She gave a major speech on May 24 and said nothing about it. The pilot project was announced on August 2 and nothing was said about it. She said that recipients would always benefit from working.

What is happening now is the minister has gone from “always” to “the majority” to “most”, and I am sure by Friday it will be that “some” benefit from working.

Even the examples that are cited on the Service Canada website use high-end earnings. One example is that if a part-time worker earns $795 a week, then he or she would benefit. If somebody earns $795, that is about $40,000 a year. In my riding, that is a career.

In the minister's answers the other day she used two examples, both of which started with, “If the claimant worked for three days”. Not everybody can find three days of work. Some can find two, some can find one, some can find four hours for the week. There should not be a disincentive in taking those four hours for the week. However, if people are making $10 an hour and they go for that four hours expecting to make and keep $40 but are only getting $20 and if they need gas there and back, a sandwich and maybe a babysitter, there are a lot of people who would find themselves in a situation where they actually lose money. The motion put forward by the opposition tries to deal with those aspects of the changes so those people are not hurt.

We have talked about the workers, and I will cite some examples shortly. What we see now is employers that are become frustrated when they try to find workers because it is tough to get workers out for that small block of hours because they lose so much. There was an incident this past weekend in one of my fishing communities. A load of herring had come in. People work countless hours during lobster and crab seasons, but during herring season they just have to come out and unload a boat for four or five hours. However, 30 workers were needed to unload the herring and the employer said that he fought and fought and was able to get about 15 or 20 people out. If it costs people money to work, that is a disincentive.

We received an email from a guy who operates a small construction company in Kenora. The folks who work there all year long operating front-end loaders and excavators work as long as they can at the end of the season. Then over the course of the winter they get involved in snow removal. These guys are bidding on contracts, but they do not know if they will have the workers during the winter season. When the snowstorms come, they do not know if they will have the bodies to run the equipment because they know the changes that have been made have created a disincentive.

Therefore, if this debate does anything today, it is that all members of Parliament take it seriously and try to find a way to fix this. I had commended the government on the best weeks aspects. When I did that, it took away the allowable earnings. If it fixes that, I will stand in my place and commend it on doing what is necessary to take away this disincentive that has been created through the changes it made to the working while on claim component.

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes questions are asked in this House for which the answer can be spoken around. I will ask a question for which there is an answer. The question is drawn from the terrible job the minister has done handling these files. She is just two feet in front of NFL replacement officials with the bungling of these files. She said twice last week that the maximum amount people could earn under the old program was $75. That is the minimum they can earn. They can earn 40% of their EI benefits.

If somebody has a calculator over there, he or she could help out the parliamentary secretary. If people are drawing the maximum benefit of $485 a week, they are allowed to earn 40% of that. On my calculator, it reads $193. They are allowed to earn $193 before there is any clawback at all. Would the parliamentary secretary confirm whether that is right? It is not $75 maximum. People can make up to $193 if they are on maximum benefits.

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have always enjoyed working with my colleague on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

When this change was made, and I am sure the member will be quick to remind everyone of what I said about it at the time, I thought it was a good change. I said that the government was doing the right thing because it had indicated that it was going to increase the amount that people would be allowed to earn from 40% to 50%. It made sense to me. I thought it would just increase the incentive to go back and take work. However, I guess what I should have known, and maybe my colleague was somewhat wiser on this, is that the devil is always in the details. At that time, there was no mention of the dropping of the allowable earnings component of this particular program.

Would my colleague not agree that it was the dropping of allowable earnings that has really had a huge impact on the low income earners and the poorest of the poor? We are trying to fix something here today. Hopefully, that is what we can accomplish with this motion. Would she therefore agree with me that if we could get back to looking at the allowable earnings portion, it would go a far ways in helping people?

[Business of Supply, October 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will be very precise. This is a good motion. People are hurting. Let us fix it. Let us focus the debate on that today. If we can do that, we are doing our job as members of Parliament.

Does my colleague agree that the most hurtful change was the removal of the provision for allowable earnings? It is very specific. When the provision for allowable earnings was dropped, that is when people got hurt by this change.

[Employment Insurance, September 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has done a remarkably poor job in answering questions on the EI file, so I am going to make it really easy today. I am going to go with a true or false question.

Under the old system, people could earn and keep 40% of their EI benefit. So, if they were receiving maximum benefits, they could keep $193, with zero clawback. True or false?

The minister has a 50% chance of being right on this one. Good luck.

[Helping Families in Need Act, September 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member is asking me to say something nice about the piece of legislation, but I will wait for the technical briefing. I stuck my neck out. I actually believed the Minister of Human Resources when she said she was going to increase the amount Canadians could earn working while on claim from 40% to 50%. She said nothing about taking away the allowable earnings. She said nothing about that at the time. That came out six months later.

When she came out with a grand plan, I said “kudos” to the minister. My colleagues in the committee would know I did. I said it made sense, that it was a good pilot project to go from 40% to 50%. How they jigged that up, I am not sure. They must have people staying awake at night wondering how they can stick it to the most vulnerable in our country.

If we go to the briefing tonight and the bureaucrats can answer our questions satisfactorily, then I might come back and say yes, it is good for Canadians.

[Helping Families in Need Act, September 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we were not given any indication as to why. The cart arrived and then we got notice of the horse shortly thereafter.

I look forward to meeting with the bureaucrats tonight. We will get an appreciation for where the areas of concern are going to be and we will have an opportunity to quiz those who deal with this day in and day out. Frankly, what we are getting from the minister is a mile wide and an inch deep, and that is not unique at all to this situation.

We know about the famous letter to The Guardian newspaper, in which the minister said that 80% of EI recipients were getting their cheques in 21 days, when they were actually getting notice of either payment or non-payment. It is tough putting groceries in the fridge with a notice of non-payment. For some reason, Sobeys does not cash notices of non-payment.

We will see the officials tonight. We anticipate a good exchange of ideas and we will be better briefed tomorrow. It would have been more advantageous to have it prior to this debate today so we could quiz the minister. However, since that is not the case, we will take those questions to the bureaucrats tonight and pass them on to the minister maybe in subsequent question periods.

[Helping Families in Need Act, September 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, I remember that campaign. My colleague from Sydney—Victoria already had his bill positioned and it was on the table. There were two ladies who worked in his office, one who had fairly severe heart problems and the other who was battling cancer. The bill was sort of inspired by those in his office and by speaking with officials. However, I recall very well the campaign by the young lady.

EI is about making decisions. It is like the tax structure. The Conservatives have boutique tax credits that cause people to question whether they really impact any behavioural change. With EI, we want the system to work for the vast majority of Canadians who lose their jobs and are out of work. That is what it is there for. Beyond that, we are compassionate people in a compassionate nation and we have to care for and provide for those going through those horrific situations.

[Helping Families in Need Act, September 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have been here 12 years now and that is the best question that I have ever been asked.

For my colleague's benefit, the fact is that the EI fund was never a stand-alone fund and all Canadians realize that now. The Liberals took power in 1993 and the unemployment rate was 12.5%. Let us remember that. The unemployment rate in this country in 1992-93 was 12.5%. There was a stand-alone EI fund that was totally bankrupt. Under the Auditor General's advice, the operation of the EI program fell into general revenues. It fell into the general pot.

Under the stewardship of the Liberals the unemployment rate went from 12.5% down to 6.5%, inflation went down from double digits to single digits, interest rates at 12.5% went down to prime. More people were paying into the EI program then because more people were working and fewer people were drawing money out. Obviously there was a surplus but that was then and this is now.

[Helping Families in Need Act, September 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to joining and contributing to this debate. As I indicated earlier in my question to the minister, the Liberal Party will be supporting this bill. We see it as a positive gesture in that it will have a positive impact on Canadians who are in a very traumatic position, who are battling and going through some great personal challenges. For Canadians who are facing such hardship and facing such emotional, physical, mental and spiritual pain, the anguish they go through in these types of situations should never be compounded by a further financial burden.

This bill would certainly go toward that. I know my friend and fellow member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources and Skills Development, the member for Brant, is going to speak on this issue. I know he can speak first-hand and I look forward to his intervention and comments today on this piece of legislation.

As I tried to impart to the minister at the time, it is a bit strange that we are debating this today and then we are invited to the technical briefing on the bill later this evening. We are debating what we think the bill is going to include and how it will impact Canadians and how it plays out, but we have seen that the track record of the government is not great on actually saying and implying it is going to improve on a particular issue in a particular situation. The old adage is that the devil is in the details, and when those details finally unfold, we see that there are unintended consequences or that the consequences have such a negative impact on a group that it makes no sense whatsoever for the government to have proceeded in this manner.

My colleague from Hamilton Mountain made note of the working while on claim provisions. I would like to welcome the New Democratic Party to that discussion, because we started that when the House opened. We have been pounding that one, so it was nice to see NDP members getting engaged today and giving it the old college try. We appreciate the support, but we have been hammering all last week on it. It was probably the article in The Globe and Mail that finally sparked them to see that there might be something going on there that they might want to pay attention to.

What we have seen from the minister and her handling of the working while on claim file would make the NFL replacement officials blush with competency. Whatever took place through the genesis of that bill, whatever is going on there, there are people being hurt, and that is the part about the devil being in the details. That is why we look forward to the technical briefing. That is why we support sending the bill to the committee.

This bill impacts 6,000 people. This is an important piece of legislation, an important piece of assistance. An estimated 6,000 people will benefit from this change. We will go through this at committee.

The same cannot be said about the other changes, because they impact 850,000 Canadians. When we look at the unemployed, we see they number 1.4 million, but 850,000 Canadians received some type of support through the EI program last year, and they would be impacted by the changes made by the government.

Again, I do not know if there is a great deal of trust between Canadians and the Conservative government. The minister is now saying that the best way to support this program is through the EI system. However, she is clearly on the record in response to an announcement made prior to the last election about a family benefits package, much of which is in the bill here, when she said that there are other options for people trying to care for loved ones, including the fact that “most employees do have vacation leave that they can use.”

She felt that people could take vacation to accommodate some of the time needed to care for those loved ones in a tough situation. This shift in her position might cause some concern, and members can understand why we look forward to the technical briefing.

Again, it is great to come in and read a speech, but it is about understanding the files. When there are a couple of variables within the files, all Canadians want to know is the truth about how it will impact them.

The minister went out on a nationwide public relations initiative this year to sell the working while on claim program. However, even today in the House, she responded to a question posed by the member for Bourassa by saying that under the old system, workers were only allowed to earn $75. However, that was the minimum; members know that it is 40% of their EI earnings, so if a person was earning maximum dollars, they would be able to earn $194 before dollar one was clawed back.

I think that is about the minister not understanding the files. She can read her eloquent speech here, but I look forward to sitting down with the bureaucrats to see how this would impact Canadians. I will put my trust in the bureaucrats.

The minister gave two examples today in answer to questions and cited examples in relation to someone working for three days. However, when the EI benefit variables are changed and the maximum EI benefit is used, in both of her examples they would have lost under the new program as well. She is being a little cute with some of her answers, and totally disingenuous.

We look forward to going to the technical briefing this evening and quizzing the officials on how they see this rolling out and the impact it would have on Canadians. Whenever we work with and make changes in the EI program, it does have an impact.

I think the comment that was made by the member for Hamilton Mountain was worthwhile. If somebody utilized this program within the EI system, used 35 weeks of leave, but was then unfortunate enough to lose their job, what happens then? Certainly a stand-alone program may make more sense in this particular situation.

My friend and colleague for Sydney—Victoria came forward with a private member's bill in the last Parliament. It was supported by the NDP and the Bloc, but it was not supported by the Conservatives. The bill was for the extension of EI benefits for those facing additional hardship.

Right now, the benefit runs for 15 weeks. However, there are a number of different statistics. The representatives from the Canadian Breast Cancer Society had talked about the normal period, especially if somebody is going through chemotherapy, running about 35 weeks. To have one's benefits run out after 15 weeks poses an incredible hardship on somebody who is battling a disease like cancer. Representations were also made by the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation.

When the bureaucrats, the people who work at Service Canada and the employment insurance offices, have to phone somebody who is fighting a catastrophic illness and tell them that his or her benefits are running out and can no longer continue, they know the hardship and the stress that they are placing on that person. They advocated for the changes that were being advocated by the private member's bill put forward by colleague from Sydney—Victoria.

It comes down to those types of choices. It comes down to who we are going to be able to provide for. I think it would have been a worthwhile initiative to support that bill.

There are some concerns, even with the EI, about the information we are using when we make these decisions. It has been said that the Conservatives are not that interested in facts or science. They never want to let the facts interfere with sound ideology. My colleague from Malpeque says the only science they believe in is political science.

In 2010, the EI tracking survey conducted by Human Resources and Skills Development shed some light on the inadequacy of the current 15 weeks off. In that survey, 16% of respondents who took time off work due to illness required 13 to 25 weeks off, while 20% required over 25 weeks off from their workplace. There is evidence from medical stakeholders that reaffirms that these timelines are pretty standard.

That tells us that the current EI system takes us part way, but not all the way.

This bill is a good first step, I think, and it is a nice gesture. However, I think there is so much more that can be done.

Other nations recognize that. European Union countries, Lithuania, Japan, all look at 22 weeks for sick benefits, while we are still at 15. Again, 22 weeks is not enough but it is closer to the standards that are being advocated by stakeholders that know these issues.

There are some other changes that could be made. There are worthwhile changes being put forward in Bill C-44, but there are other changes that could be made.

I am sure all members of the House have had an opportunity to work with and to listen to people who suffer from multiple sclerosis. My office manager is an MS patient. She is a tremendous lady, but there are peaks and valleys. There are times where she is able to work full out but then there are times where she needs rest. It is the disease that dictates how much energy one has on a particular day. It is a terrible affliction.

If there were some flexibility within the EI system then we could accommodate a worker who is skilled and trained and wants to work, and who works in a job that has some flexibility within it.

The government talks at great lengths about skills shortages and the need for skilled labour. Someone could be dealing with MS for many years and still be a valuable contributing member of the workforce. If there is a bit of accommodation through the EI program, then that is a good fit for everyone. It is a good fit for the person, it is a good fit for the employer and it is a good fit for the economy.

Bill C-44 is a good step. It is an important gesture and a good gesture, but much can still be done within the system without costing a lot to the system, especially trying to accommodate those who suffer from MS. It just makes so much more sense to try to make sure that the person is a productive and contributing member of the community.

We on this side of the House have stated before that we understand the impact on these families. It is an intense expectation on these families. It is one that no family wants to go through. When people are dealing with an illness, when parents are dealing with a son or daughter's affliction, we as Canadians are compassionate enough to do what we can to help them through that situation. I think Bill C-44 would at least go some ways toward that.

My party and I look forward to supporting the bill.