Yvon Godin

[Human Resources Development, February 8th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has all the information concerning the transitional jobs fund, for each and every riding. In fact, this information is currently on the desk of the leader of the government in the House.

Canadians are entitled to that information. Is the Prime Minister prepared to table today, in this House, all the information contained in his magic book?

[Liberal Government, February 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, when one takes a hard look at how certain ministers of this government have squandered billions of dollars, one wonders about the government's integrity.

The government has not taken responsibility for these actions. Citizens have the right to expect that the public purse is properly managed. The government has broken that trust. It is hiding from the evidence that there was political interference for the benefit of Liberal members. The October 1998 audit of HRDC raised concerns about projects which may have been approved for political reasons rather than based on the strength of business plans.

Canadians have lost confidence in the Minister of Human Resources Development and in her predecessor. The NDP is asking the Prime Minister to take action and ask for the resignations of the current Minister of Human Resources Development and her predecessor.

[Employment Insurance, December 15th, 1999]

That is not right.

[Employment Insurance, December 15th, 1999]

The problem is in my riding.

[Employment Insurance, December 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to rise today to present and debate Motion No. 222 on seasonal workers and the employment insurance.

The motion reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take immediate action to restore Employment Insurance benefits to seasonal workers.

The debate on this votable motion is an opportunity for my colleagues and myself to thoroughly look into the issue of seasonal work and try to find short, medium and long term solutions.

I introduced this motion in order to demystify seasonal work. People who work in seasonal industries are often called seasonal workers. We often forget that they are not seasonal workers; their jobs are seasonal.

The main reason I wanted to introduce this motion is the recent changes to the employment insurance plan. Through this debate, I want to highlight the negative impact of these changes on the lives of people who work in seasonal industries and of their families.

I want to highlight the important contribution of these workers to our country and our economy. But most of all, I want to engage my colleagues in an exchange in order to develop solutions that will certainly include a proposal to reform the employment insurance, but also proposals to diversify our country's seasonal economy.

First, it must be mentioned that seasonal work is very important for the Canadian economy. It accounts for one million direct jobs and contributes to the creation of thousands of others. A number of industries are seasonal by nature. A case in point are the industries which are weather-dependent such as fishing, logging, agriculture, mining, construction and tourism. There are other industries such as the automotive industry, education, and cultural industries.

Seasonal industries are an important variable in Canada's balance of payments. Net exportations of agricultural products, seafood, energy and mainly wood products are the main elements in Canada's balance of trade.

The tourism industry is the 12th largest economic sector.

In 1995, shipments by the construction industry were estimated at $22.8 billion. That year, the building materials industry accounted for about 6% of the gross domestic product from manufacturing and it provided direct jobs to nearly 150,000 people across Canada.

In 1996, the forestry sector contributed $20 billion to the Canadian economy. Activities in this sector accounted for 2.9% of the GDP. In 1997, national forestry exports were estimated at $38.9 billion. Moreover, in 1997, the forestry sector provided 365,000 direct jobs.

As for the commercial fishery on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, it was valued at $1.6 billion in 1997. Fisherman from the Atlantic provinces are responsible for 74% of that amount.

Looking at these statistics, it is obvious that seasonal industries are important to our economy throughout the country. All these sectors make an important contribution not only to our economy but also to our quality of life.

Part time university professors contribute to the education of our young people but their work often depends on university semesters.

Who does not appreciate a nice lobster, especially here in Ottawa? We often tend to forget that before reaching our plate lobster had to be harvested by a fisherman and packed by a plant worker to be shipped to Ottawa.

Tourism is another example. A canoe rental business can hardly find clients in the middle of winter when rivers are frozen. Therefore, it provides work to its employees only 10 or 12 weeks out of the year, during the summer months.

Seasonal jobs are dispersed throughout Canadian industries. Their contribution to the Canadian economy goes far beyond the activity that is confined directly to the seasonal jobs themselves.

In the forestry sector for example, the harvesting of trees leads to primary sector activity in sawmills, pulp and paper, and plywood and panel board plants. Secondary manufacturing includes planing mills, engineered wood products, manufacturing of paper or cardboard products, wood re-manufacturing, prefab homes and wood doors and windows.

Seasonal activity in forestry generates year round activity in many more sectors.

In 1995, a working committee was set up to examine the issue of seasonal work and employment insurance. Its report contains findings that in my opinion are still valid today.

First, it draws attention to the fact that what is seasonal is not the workers but the jobs. Second, the committee found that the contribution of seasonal labour to the Canadian economy was largely ignored.

Furthermore, it noted that a negative attitude toward seasonal workers was emerging and that these workers were considered responsible for the temporary nature of their jobs.

Finally, it warned the Liberal government of the day that any change to employment insurance would disproportionately affect seasonal workers.

The government had in its possession a document that said what exactly the impact would be on seasonal workers but it chose to go ahead anyway.

What is the situation today? The eligibility criteria are too high and prevent many seasonal workers from receiving employment insurance benefits.

In addition, the government decided to punish workers who frequently claim employment insurance by making them subject to the intensity rule.

The committee was right to say that the government had a negative attitude toward seasonal workers.

Instead of attacking seasonal workers, the employment insurance reform should have taken into account their particular conditions and created a system reflecting the reality of the labour market.

Seasonal work is a subject of special concern because those engaged in seasonal work have fewer alternatives than other workers and are therefore more dependent on EI. They cannot fish when the bait is frozen or cut trees in the spring thaw when roads turn to mud. Very often, workers in seasonal industries live in remote areas of the country where the only work is seasonal and things freeze up in the winter.

The working group has also predicted that the EI reform would have a negative impact on women. In many cases, women who work in fish plants are unable to meet the number of hours of work requirement to qualify for EI.

With the EI reform, the number of hours required to qualify has doubled in certain areas. Besides, the 910 hours required from newcomers on the labour market or from workers who have been away from the labour market for a time result in the exclusion of many women and young people.

This 910 hour requirement penalizes women who have decided to stay home to raise their children during their formative years. When they go back to work and the seasonal work ends, they do not have any income because they cannot meet that 910 hour requirement.

Why did the government choose to make those changes if it knew what the impact on women would be? Perhaps because it wanted to use the surplus accumulated in the EI fund thanks to all those restrictions to reduce the deficit and the debt.

In the last few weeks, we have talked about the rise in the number of children living in poverty. It is not hard to realize that the EI cuts have deprived mothers and fathers of benefits, and that their families suffer because of that.

Since many poor families are headed by single mothers, the fact that women do not qualify for EI has contributed directly to the increase in child poverty. The saddest thing of all is that this negative impact was very likely intentional

The EI reform has had a negative impact on seasonal workers. This impact was predicted and can be observed today.

It is time to admit that errors were made. It is time to make changes so that seasonal workers can again qualify for EI premiums.

But the government must not stop there. I am often accused of suggesting EI as the solution to all problems. That it not true. Really.

What must be remembered is that the EI program is there to help workers who have, through no fault of their own, lost their job. It is a temporary measure to help during the transitional period, but this government is forgetting that this temporary measure is necessary for both workers and for the economy. When workers are denied EI premiums, small and medium size businesses suffer too.

Even the Liberals agreed with us. In 1993, when the Prime Minister was the leader of the opposition, he said:

By reducing benefits and further penalizing those who leave their jobs voluntarily, the government shows very little concern for the victims of the economic crisis. Instead of getting to the heart of the problem, it goes after the unemployed.

What happened to our Prime Minister? Perhaps the same thing that happened to the red book, the GST and all the rest.

The Prime Minister went on to say:

These measures will have a disturbing impact.

Is it not ironic that when he came to power our Prime Minister did exactly what he spoke out against? He went after unemployed workers and the result was very disturbing.

The Prime Minister was not the only one to oppose relentlessly the proposed changes to employment insurance. On July 31, 1989, my predecessor, Doug Young, said that the taxpayers of New Brunswick should vigorously oppose these changes, which would have serious consequences on the region.

I am prepared to give credit to the Liberals. They understood the situation before taking office in 1993. They knew that employment insurance was an important program that was part and parcel of the social fabric of our country.

I even believe that they know now that they are wrong. But the employment insurance fund is accumulating a surplus of $7 billion every year and they do not want to give up what this surplus brings them. As I said before and continue to say, workers are the victims in this case and this is unacceptable.

My hon. colleagues opposite sometimes point out to me that workers are abusing the employment insurance program. But the workers are not the ones dependent on the employment insurance system, the Minister of Finance is. He cannot do without it and he relies on it.

But to talk about employment insurance is not good enough. The problem with seasonal industries is that we do not think in the long term about the diversification of the economies dependent on these industries.

Seasonal work is found mainly in rural areas where natural resource development is the main activity.

It is not that people do not want to work. It is a situation where once their working season comes to an end, be it in forestry, the tourist industry, fishing or construction, there is no other work to be had.

Thus, apart from giving them access to the EI program, we must also invest to ensure economic diversification.

Too often these communities harvest the resource. For example, in communities like Caraquet, Shippagan, Lamèque, Bouctouche and Cap Pelé in New Brunswick, fish is caught and then sent to Japan for processing.

Why not do the processing at home? Why should we not do secondary and tertiary processing? Why do we not develop aquaculture, which could represent the future of fisheries?

However to develop such industries, we need a long term vision that builds on the experience and the know-how of all the players, investors, workers, community groups and elected officials, whatever their political affiliation.

For too long now Atlantic Canada has suffered because of decisions based on political motives rather than on the best interest of the communities. This has to change. We cannot go on like this.

The Liberals will have to stop giving away money only to their friends and start looking at the real economy and the way to develop it. What they are doing is the way things were done by politicians a century ago. It has to change. We have to work together to change things. We cannot go on like this. We need a long-term vision on how to develop the economy of our country and of our rural areas. As long as we do not do it, we will be missing the boat. We will be missing the boat and a great opportunity. We have to recognize the difference between rural Canada and urban areas.

We need to invest in our infrastructures so that our rural communities can become as competitive as our urban centres.

Again, in my province of New-Brunswick, the natural gas pipeline runs from Sable Island to the south, but does not go to the north. How do you expect northern New-Brunswick to compete with the south when the infrastructures serving these two areas are not the same?

Besides investing in the infrastructures, we have to invest in people. We have to give them some training. Not just any kind of training, but training in the industries that are liable to develop in their region.

We have to try to improve access to training. In order to diversify the economy, we need to provide the workers with the support they need to get jobs in the new industries.

The working group, in looking at the seasonal worker and employment insurance, said:

What is lacking in many areas dependent on seasonal work is the infrastructure to make diversification possible, for example:

Core infrastructure such as transportation, telecommunications, basic services such as water, electricity and waste disposal;

Access to research institutions with the corporate-government and university liaisons and the means to develop and market research ideas;

Access to education and training institutions, both the buildings and the hardware and software to reach rural communities;

Access to financial institutions to bridge the financing requirements at a reasonable cost for start-up companies and companies in need of restructuralizing, rationalizing or expanding.

In other words, we need some planning. We have to determine which regions rely on seasonal work and then develop strategies based on their specific needs.

We have to remember that seasonal workers are here to stay. We will always want to eat lobster and need lumber to build our houses.

We have to stop penalizing seasonal workers and try to find solutions to extend the working season in the communities that rely on seasonal work.

While we wait for medium and long-term solutions, we need to make the EI benefits more accessible by reducing the number of working hours needed to qualify.

We have to stop hurting seasonal workers. We have to get rid of the intensity rule. And lastly, we have to increase the benefit rate to 60%.

I have submitted my short, medium and long-term solutions to the seasonal work problem and I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

[Employment Insurance, December 15th, 1999]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take immediate action to restore Employment Insurance benefits to seasonal workers.

[Transfers To Provinces, December 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, December 8, the legislative assembly of New Brunswick unanimously passed a motion calling for the re-establishment of social transfers to the 1994-95 level.

Is the Minister of Finance prepared to listen to his Liberal cousins in New Brunswick and restore transfer payments to their 1994-1995 level in order to ensure that the people of New Brunswick may benefit from better social programs?

[Bilingualism, December 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Harris government's decision to ignore advisor Glen Shortliffe's recommendation that Ottawa become a bilingual city, and now its intention to appeal the Montfort ruling, are insults to the Francophonie of Canada and Ontario.

As the nation's capital, Ottawa must reflect the bilingual nature of our country. As well, francophones and anglophones living in our capital must have access to services in their mother tongue.

Since this shocking announcement, we have had a motion from the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages calling for bilingual status for Ottawa. But the Prime Minister prefers to wait until he has a chance to speak to Mr. Harris.

Our Prime Minister must show leadership and intervene immediately with Premier Harris in order to defend the bilingual nature of Ottawa.

There is nothing tricky about it: Canada's national capital must be bilingual.

[Canada Labour Code, December 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to support Bill C-212 sponsored by the hon. member for Laurentides.

This bill would amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act and the Public Service Staff Relations Act. It renders any provision in a collective agreement concluded under these Acts—excluding a provision based on the seniority principle—of no force or effect where employees hired after a specified date do not receive the same employee or pay benefits or conditions of employment as those received by other employees covered by the collective agreement.

In practical terms, this bill is a protection for new entrants in the workforce and for and younger workers newly hired by a business.

This bill provides that these workers will receive the same pay and conditions of employment as those received by other workers.

This bill addresses the issue of what is commonly called the orphan clauses. These clauses provide for workers hired after a specified date conditions that are lower than those set out in the collective agreement for other workers, in terms of pay, probationary period, social benefits, employment security of retirement plans.

These clauses may be temporary or permanent, depending on whether or not the new workers will be able in the short, medium or long term to enjoy the same working conditions than the older workers.

There are four main types of orphan clauses.

The first ones are permanent clauses dealing with pay scales. Under these clauses, the pay of older workers and the pay of new ones increase according to different pay scales, and the new workers cannot reach the same pay ceiling as the older workers.

There are also permanent clauses concerning flat rates of pay. Under these clauses, older and new workers are paid according to a flat rate, the rate for new workers being lower than the one for older workers.

Third, there are permanent clauses dealing with both a flat rate of pay and a pay scale.

There are two possible scenarios under this scheme: either the older workers are paid according to a flat rate while the new workers are paid according to a wage scale without having the chance to ever reach the top rate given the older workers, or the older workers are paid according to a wage scale while the new workers are paid according to a flat rate which never reaches the pay ceiling granted to the older workers.

Finally, there are the temporary formulas applicable to wage scales, where the pay of old and new employees increases according to separate scales whose higher levels are established at the same rate.

It is clear that no matter what formula is applied, discriminatory clauses are causing a lot of frustration, are creating a cleavage between old and new employees and are generating tensions within businesses.

Discriminatory clauses can also affect the solidarity of union members, while undermining the credibility of unions with young people.

This bill addresses these legitimate concerns toward these discriminatory clauses that guarantee the working conditions of employees who are now in their position but that provide for reduced benefits for future employees. Discrimination toward new employees, mainly young people, is the direct consequence of these agreements.

This bill recognizes and supports the seniority principle. However, it would prevent the implementation, in a collective agreement, of other discriminatory clauses that would allow employers to fill vacant positions by giving reduced salaries or benefits.

Young people already have so much difficulty in the labour market without facing this additional discrimination. First of all, it is quite a challenge to find a job. Too often young people come out of universities and colleges, but cannot find work because they do not have the experience required.

It is a vicious circle where our young people are trying to gain experience but do not have the opportunity to enter the job market. Right now, once again, some people want to punish them and discriminate against them.

I can understand, having been a union negotiator in the past, that union representatives are sometimes pushed to the wall. They are being told that if they do not want this or that they will not have a collective agreement. Some governments have used blackmail, saying “if you do not want that, everybody will be fired”. So they did not have a choice and were caught in this war to try to keep the jobs of their employees or their members.

It is unfortunate to see that the member for Mississauga West has so little respect for unions when his brother worked for a union for years and his union salary allowed him to put food on the table. He was able to eat thanks to the steelworkers union.

He should be ashamed to rise today in the House of Commons and not be able to make a speech in all honesty and not even have respect for his own brother and for all the work he has done in this country.

For those who manage to find jobs, they are always temporary contract jobs that provide no security.

Once their contract is over, these same young people are left without a job and most of them are not eligible for employment insurance because of the 910 hours rule for new entrants. Once again, this is the fault of the Liberals and the Conservatives, who just keep hammering young people. That is what happened and today they still want to hammer young people by offering them salaries that are different from those of other employees.

Right now, only 15% of young people who are unemployed receive employment insurance benefits. For young women without a job, the situation is even more precarious. Only 10% of them get employment insurance benefits. As if the situation of young workers were not difficult enough as it is, we have multiplied the number of orphan clauses according which new employees are paid lower wages and get lower benefits than their fellow workers who perform the same duties.

We must put an end to such discrimination. Our young workers deserve the same wages and benefits as their fellow workers who perform the same duties. After all, it is a matter of equity.

When I was a union representative, I even refused that a student be paid differently than another worker who had more seniority in the business. Our young people must not be discriminated against, as they are our children. Any member who is unwilling to support our children does not deserve to represent his riding.

Today, I noticed that the member for Laurentides asked a question to the Minister of Labour on this subject. The minister answered this, and I quote “All collective agreements are drafted by management and the union. Therefore, it is up to them to include appropriate clauses in theses agreements”.

How can the Minister of Labour adopt such an attitude toward our young workers?

When we talk about the Minister of Labour's duties, we are mostly talking about the public sector. Does the Minister of Labour really want the future generation to lose everything we fought so hard for for so many years?

Young people's lives should get easier from one generation to the other. However, for the current generation they are getting worse. Post-secondary education is more and more expensive even if the quality of education is diminishing.

As I have said before, jobs are more difficult to find and working conditions are getting worse. We are now faced with orphan clauses which deal directly with our young workers' wages and working conditions. The Minister of Labour says that she has nothing to do with it. If she really wants to protect the rights of young people and workers, she should support this initiative.

As parliamentarians, we should ensure that future generations will benefit from a better quality of life than what we have now. However, we often consider only the short term and in so doing we neglect the needs of our young people.

This initiative of the member for Laurentides is a good opportunity to begin to correct this situation. It is a good occasion to tell our young people “You are important to us and we will make sure that your interests are taken into account”.

I urge all my colleagues to support Bill C-212 and to end this discrimination against our young people.

And to the Reform Party, which keeps talking about separation and separatists, I say that right now, on a Friday in the month of December, Quebec has not yet separated from Canada and we should not be talking about separation. We should work together.

I commend the hon. member for Laurentides for having introduced this bill in the House. I support it.

[Port Of Belledune, December 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the port of Belledune is essential for the economic development of northeastern New Brunswick. The federal government has already written off the debts of several ports in Canada, including the port of Saint John.

Will the government now ensure equal treatment for all ports in Canada and write off the $43 million debt of the port of Belledune?