Yves Lessard

[Canada Pension Plan, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I invite the member and parliamentary secretary to actually answer the question from the member for Alfred-Pellan.

I am disconcerted to see that when she is asked why the Conservative government refuses to pay the guaranteed income supplement to seniors—to which they are entitled retroactively—she answers that we have to be careful with public funds. This is quite disconcerting.

The primary function of the guaranteed income supplement is in fact to be careful with the finances of our most disadvantaged citizens in order to help them. That is something she is not taking into consideration.

This was a right and it is still a right. This right should be retroactive because seniors have been deprived of it. Owing to their isolated situation, they have remained unaware of this right.

I would like the parliament secretary to answer the question properly. If she does not do so, I invite her to listen again to what she said, because it does not make any sense.

[Canada Pension Plan, January 30th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to congratulate and thank the hon. member for Repentigny. He gave us his appreciation and analysis of the situation, and I want to stress the quality that he displayed in telling us about his experience and in sharing with us his rather exceptional course.

My colleague described the plight of those seniors who are affected by this injustice on the part of the Canadian government, an injustice that has prevented them from having access to the guaranteed income supplement. He showed very clearly how the government acted, so that these people would become ineligible for these benefits through their own actions.

Without getting into the sordid aspects of life, I wonder if my colleague could tell the House about the impact of such a measure on the most vulnerable seniors in our society. Indeed, the first criterion to qualify for this supplement is that the person must have a low income. In other words, we are targeting the most needy. With Bill C-36, an effort is being made to allow these people to now have access to this guaranteed income supplement. However, they were robbed of $3 billion, and I am not using excessive language here.

I wonder if the hon. member could elaborate on this point and remind us of the impact that these measures have had on the elderly.

[Older Workers, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the programs that the minister is talking about are programs for people who can still work.

The former income support program for older workers, known as POWA, worked very well and often represented a last hope for many older workers who were the victims of mass layoffs.

How are we to explain to older workers and their families that a government with colossal surpluses abandons them almost without resources while the solution to their problems is well known and easy to put in place?

[Business of Supply, November 23rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask the minister a brief question.

If by chance, the Prime Minister’s resolution was adopted, if reality was turned around and another province left Canada, such as Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland and Labrador, would Quebec cease to be a nation?

[November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning about Bill C-269, which, for the people who are watching, seeks to amend the employment insurance program in order to restore its true character and its real role.

I am very happy about the NDP's position, announced by the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. The NDP will vote in favour of this bill. I am also happy about the position of the member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, who will vote for the bill. However, he did not announce the position of his party, the Liberal Party. I would have liked to know whether the Liberal Party will vote in favour of the bill. I hope it will, and I urge it to do so.

This morning, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs acknowledged that this bill represented a radical alteration. That is at least something. It is a radical alteration. But the parliamentary secretary did not see the need for such a change. The problem is that the Conservatives are not aware of what workers who are unfortunate enough to lose their jobs go through.

She also went on about the fact that my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle, who introduced this bill, had toured Quebec to discuss it. The parliamentary secretary did not see the point of such a tour, because pilot projects are already under way in various regions, some of which she mentioned. Therein lies the problem. The government is using band-aids and patches to try to solve a serious problem. The parliamentary secretary does not want to acknowledge that, yet she boasts of having implemented pilot projects. None of these pilot projects is remedying the situation.

A number of the measures in Bill C-269 are designed to improve access to employment insurance. Less than 40% of people who are contributing to employment insurance and for whom employers are contributing to employment insurance can hope to receive benefits if they are so unfortunate as to lose their job.

The people who are receiving employment insurance are getting such low benefits that families are continuing to sink into poverty. Even a very important United Nations committee recognized that the program, as it exists in Canada, is reducing families to poverty. The committee members admonished Canada as a result.

This bill also seeks to increase the number of weeks of benefits, without distinguishing between economic regions where employment rates may vary. All individuals and families who lose their source of income experience the same difficulties and hardships regardless of whether or not the unemployment rate is high.

The bill also seeks to broaden the safety net for self-employed workers so that they have protection when they can no longer work.

I will not go over every provision of this bill as my colleagues have already done an admirable job of that. However, I would like to say to the Conservative Party that the current rules are discriminatory, particularly towards women and youth. Only about 38% of those who lose their jobs can expect to receive employment insurance benefits. Of these, 43% are men, 33% are women and 14% are youth. Individuals working in certain types of excluded jobs are affected more drastically.

Our colleague opposite says that 80% of individuals can expect to receive employment benefits; his statistics are based on current rules, which exclude a large number of workers from receiving benefits as soon as they are affected. These figures cannot be used. It is not being entirely truthful to use these figures as my colleague did this morning.

Furthermore, employment insurance premiums have become hidden taxes. Year after year, over the course of the last 12 years in particular, the employment insurance account has generated surpluses as a direct result of the restrictions applicable to employment insurance . These surpluses have been used for other purposes with the result that $50 billion has been diverted from the employment insurance account. This money does not belong to the national treasury but to the workers and their employers.

Every year, since 1997, the Auditor General of Canada has told us how much was diverted. Last November, she reported that we had surpassed the $48 billion mark.

Surpluses on the order of $13 billion were recently announced, of which $2 billion came from the employment insurance fund. That means that we have now reached and surpassed $50 billion diverted from the employment insurance fund. This scheme was adopted under the Liberal regime. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they denounced it as we did. Now that they are in power, they are pursuing this scheme; in other words, they are cheating workers and employers by using the money in their employment insurance fund for other purposes.

Last year, like every year, particularly since 1997, the Bloc Québécois came systematically back to this problem and introduced bills. Last year, we introduced Bill C-278, which mirrored many of the amendments we want to make to the act now, and the Conservatives voted against that bill. I hope that this year the Conservative members will realize how offensive their actions are to workers and to the public in each of their ridings.

I regularly receive letters, and I received another one this morning. Nearly every week, I receive two or three letters from other ridings. One of them comes to me from Mégantic—L'Érable. It is about a family in which the man and woman are both affected. In three pages, it describes all of the hardship caused by being unable to access employment insurance after paying in to it. These people are now middle-aged, and I note the insensitivity of the Conservatives, like the Liberals before them. However, I think that now that the Liberals are in opposition they will be able to reflect a little more on how they laid waste to the employment insurance fund. I hope that they will be voting the same way as we do.

To conclude, I would point out that the diversion of $50 billion has been accomplished on the backs of workers, fewer than 40% of whom have any hope of drawing employment insurance. This is a serious economic crime, one that has been committed at the expense of the unemployed and their families, and of regions in each of my colleagues’ ridings. This is a loss of over $30 million per year in their ridings, money that is not flowing into the regional economy. This is an exacerbating factor in the fiscal imbalance for each of the provinces, and particularly for Quebec, because these people who are not receiving employment insurance after paying into it all their lives end up in the ranks of social assistance recipients.

This is completely unacceptable. We should be rebelling against it, and I urge all my colleagues in the House to vote for Bill C-269.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, I think the minister, in her response, has just confirmed what I am saying. She has just one solution to reintegrate older workers into the labour market.

With respect to older workers who can no longer return to the labour market, who have no income after their employment insurance benefits run out and whose only future is to become welfare recipients, Quebec and the provinces will have to take care of them. As a result, this will accentuate the fiscal imbalance and will shift responsibility to the provinces and Quebec for which the federal government is withdrawing money from the EI fund.

What will she do for workers who no longer have a future at work, who are older and who need income support to bridge the gap between losing their job and receiving their pension?

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the minister to reread the text. In it, the actuary said that the minister had not requested any modifications for the coming year. The actuary therefore concludes that no changes will be requested for the coming year.

Having clarified that, my second question is about income support for older workers. All evening, the governing party has talked about reintegrating older workers, as though that were a possibility for all older workers.

The Bloc agrees that there should be reintegration programs, but we must also recognize that some people cannot be reintegrated for a number of reasons. Retraining can be a problem because of age, work experience and lack of jobs in the regions.

The Conservatives have a magic formula. They say that if there is no work in one region, all we have to do is send those workers, including older workers, to Alberta. This implies that older workers are the solution to the labour shortage in western Canada. They are refusing to acknowledge what is really happening in the regions where older workers do not have work or cannot get back into the labour market.

Will the minister introduce an income support program for older workers as Quebec is now doing for older workers in the softwood lumber sector?

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, two days ago, the chief actuary of the Canada employment insurance commission submitted his annual report. Under the regulations, the minister must, by October 15 of each year, give the chief actuary the plans for employment insurance changes.

However, we have learned from the chief actuary that the minister did not submit any plans. Therefore, he concludes that the minister has no plans for the coming year.

How can the minister justify the decision not to make any changes to the employment insurance program when we are hearing from all sides that the program no longer meets current requirements?

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

I rise on a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The rules of the game are clear: the answer must be the same length as the question and must constitute an answer. He cannot answer with a question.

[Business of Supply, November 1st, 2006]

Mr. Chair, does the minister realize that there is a shortage of manpower in some regions of Canada, while there is unemployment in other parts of the country?

Let us take the workers in the Abitibi region. They were laid off because sawmills closed their doors. Does the minister wish to send these workers to Alberta? Is that what she wants to do?

We have to be realistic. I want the minister to answer my question. Does she realize that when people are unemployed, it is not by choice, it is because there are no jobs in their region? Is the minister aware of that? If so, will she improve their employment insurance benefits?