44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 12, 2022 11:00AM
moved that Bill C-215, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (illness, injury or quarantine) be concurred in.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very important question.
Unfortunately, retail workers are not lucky enough to have group insurance, to have insurance through their employer to cover a period after 15 weeks. These workers, who do not necessarily have the highest income in Canada, are hard hit when they get a serious illness and their 15 weeks run out. As of next year, they will have 26 weeks. They are not fortunate enough to have the income they need to fully convalesce and recover. That is really important, and it affects thousands of Canadians every year.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent question. As legislators in the House, we have all heard about Canadians in our respective ridings who needed more weeks of employment insurance sickness benefits.
That being said, there is one important thing that might convince the Liberal government. At the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, a senior official from the department told us that it would cost $1 billion to shift to 26 weeks of benefits. According to the parliamentary budget officer, to see this through, an additional $92 million would be needed for the first year, for a total of $1,092,000,000.
This is a small bridge to gap to be able to provide financial security to all Canadians who are sick. Without these 52 weeks, every year we are denying 31,000 Canadians the extra weeks of benefits that they need. It is worth the Liberal Party, the party in power, taking that into consideration.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. He knows me well and he knows my story. In all humility, I can say that I might not be where I am today if my wife had not experienced what she did. I am here because society, our family and our friends gave us a lot. We did not receive any government support, but we had a lot of support from our loved ones to get through this major ordeal.
This is a way that I can, for the rest of my life, give back to society what it has given me. I know that this bill will help hundreds of thousands of families for generations to come. Modernizing sickness benefits in the Employment Insurance Act will have taken 50 years. We should not miss the boat for the next 50 years.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on Bill C-215, sponsored by the member for Lévis—Lotbinière. The bill is about amending the Employment Insurance Act in the areas of illness, injury and quarantine. This bill would modify existing legislation to extend EI sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 52 weeks.
I want to be clear from the outset: The Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion opposes this bill, and the Government of Canada opposes this bill. I also want to be clear that Parliament has already approved an extension of EI sickness benefits to 26 weeks. These changes are being implemented as we speak, and as recently announced, they will be up and running beginning December 18. Additionally, the legislative changes related to this extension have already received royal assent. Therefore, I will be using my time today to explain our position and outline how our changes to Canada's EI program will help support Canadian workers.
Let there be no doubt that we recognize the financial challenges that Canadians suffering from long-term illness or injury and their families face. We know that EI sickness benefits are an important support for Canadians who need temporary leave from their job due to illness, injury or quarantine. These benefits allow individuals to take the time they need to rest and restore their health without having to worry about their financial situation.
While the current 15 weeks of entitlement are sufficient for most claimants to recover and return to work, approximately one-third of claimants exhaust the maximum entitlement of 15 weeks of benefits. This is why we are permanently extending the maximum duration of EI sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 26 weeks. This extension will provide an additional support to approximately 169,000 Canadian workers every year who require additional time to regain their health before returning to work.
In contrast, an extension of EI sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 52 weeks, as proposed in Bill C-215, would undermine the spirit and intent of the EI program, which is to keep workers connected to the labour force. Bill C-215 would incur an estimated incremental cost of over $2 billion per year, which would cost $1 billion more per year than the approved extension to 26 weeks.
I would like to turn to the issue of EI reform.
The current extension of sickness benefits is part of our broader strategy to modernize the EI program. The pandemic laid bare a number of faults with the EI program. It made us recognize that the current EI program needs to evolve so that it can better respond to changing labour markets and workforce needs. Canada needs a modern EI program that better meets the needs of workers and employers. The plan to modernize EI must take into account the realities of those who use it. That is why we have been consulting with Canadians on how to build a simpler, fairer and more flexible program.
In 2021, we embarked on a two-year consultation process on EI modernization. The consultation, which took place over two phases, is now complete. We are currently analyzing the input received from the various participants. Their insights are helping to guide us in designing a program that is more modern, resilient, accessible, adequate and financially viable.
Among other things, we heard that there is a need to reform the EI program to make it simpler, more responsive and more inclusive. The program must evolve to support all types of workers, including freelance and self-employed workers. With budget 2022, we confirmed our commitment to establishing an EI program with simpler and fairer rules for both workers and employers. Modernizing a program that serves millions of Canadians is a serious task, and we are taking the time to get it right.
I would like to thank the public servants who have worked tirelessly to provide Canadians with the benefits and services essential to their well-being. Increasing the maximum duration of these benefits and services from 15 weeks to 26 weeks will allow Canadians to focus on what is essential: their health.
We have a plan that promotes a healthy, resilient and inclusive labour market and that includes, of course, EI reform. Today, let us take note that every year, roughly 169,000 Canadians will benefit from the extension of EI sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 26 weeks.
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Mr. Speaker, the employment insurance program is antiquated and needs reform. So much has changed in the five decades since EI was imagined. For example, when EI was first brought into this country, it was built to support men as the breadwinner, a discriminatory concept that has perpetuated gender discrimination and the gender wage gap in the workforce since its inception.
Here are the stats. From 1972, when EI was first brought in, to the present, the labour force participation rate for women has almost doubled, rising from only 45% in 1972 to 85% today. This compares to a slight decline for men, from 95% participation rate to 92% now. The EI system is just another example of the systems in this country that were not built for equity and inclusion.
During the recent HUMA testimony around this bill, we heard from Madame Marie-Hélène Dubé, who has been running the “15 weeks is not enough” campaign for years. She battled cancer three times between 2003 and 2008, receiving only 15 weeks of benefits per year. This year, she went through the same nightmare yet again, still receiving only 15 weeks of support in a year when costs have skyrocketed. I raise my hands to Madame Dubé, who has continued to fight for better even during the most difficult of times. As Marie-Hélène testified, setting the benefit period of EI sickness benefit at 26 weeks would let down the people who need it the most.
That is exactly what the government did. It let people down and it needs to be corrected. Extending the benefit period from 26 weeks to 52 weeks would change everything when it comes to treatment and recovery from illness or injury, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer has demonstrated that it is a viable change. We can pay for this, and Canadians agree it is a socially acceptable measure. It is shameful that, despite support from Canadians, the government has failed to extend EI sickness benefits beyond 26 weeks.
Opposition parties, along with the NDP, must continue to advocate for Canadians who suffer from an illness or injury. That should not have to happen. We need to make sure they have access to necessary employment insurance during their time of need. The NDP supports Bill C-215 as it strives toward giving Canadians more protection when accessing these essential benefits. The NDP has tabled similar private member's bills in previous Parliaments, including in February 2020 when my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona tabled Bill C-212.
The NDP is focused on making sure that people can receive much-needed income while they are recovering from an injury or illness, and Bill C-215 provides more protection than what exists today. It allows workers the time they need to recover, something that is absolutely necessary, postpandemic specifically, as labour shortages in health care have delayed and prolonged access, diagnoses and treatments, and as the realities of long COVID are becoming better understood.
I want to go back to the failings of only having 26 weeks of sickness benefits for women and diverse genders. The need for greater EI benefits disproportionately affects them, whether it is in their capacity as single parents or the fact that there is a gender wage gap in this country that does not afford them the opportunity to save at the same rates.
In addition, I know personally that it is more difficult for women to get private sickness insurance because of the rates of breast cancer in this country. If there is a history of cancer in one's family, that risk profile is a consideration in the insurance company's assessment of allowing benefits. With one in eight women in this country being attacked by breast cancer, the chances of having no family history of it are decreasing by the day. This leaves women uninsured and unprotected from financial risks of an illness they have no control over, which is just another reason why gender inequities in the EI system need to be fixed. There are so many examples of where women were left out of the initial EI design.
Before I go on, this inspired me to go and take a look at the employment numbers from 1972 to 2022. While data from 1972 was not available on the Statistics Canada's website, data from 1976 was. I can tell members that women have driven the growth of this economy over the last 50 years.
We have had an increase of almost 10 million employees since 1972, the majority of them women, the participation rate going from 44% to 88%. The majority of new workers in our economy are women.
I want to point out, by how we classify workers, that the health care and social science assistance category has increased by 1.8 million, almost two million workers. It is shameful that it is one of the largest-growing areas of our economy and we waited this long for child care.
I will go back to Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal, which invited legislators to correct the inequity of the act toward women who had received maternity, or parental benefits or their equivalent from a provincial parental insurance plan, and the current ruling around injustices for six women who lost their jobs while on, or just after, parental leave and had their EI claims rejected because they had not worked the minimum number of hours needed to qualify for benefits.
To add insult to injury, the government continues to fight the Social Security Tribunal ruling that sections of the Employment Insurance Act violated women's constitutional rights to equality under the law. Standing here, I do not know how the government can argue that. Why do women continually have to fight the government for equity injustice?
I asked in committee about gender inequities and if the gender lens was being applied in the current budgeting considerations for the government's movement to expand from 15 weeks. This is what came back, “Regarding the PBO’s $1.9 billion estimated ongoing cost of an extension to EI sickness benefits from 15 to 52 weeks, the PBO’s formula and budgeting did not segment potential beneficiaries by gender.” The discriminatory analysis continues.
In addition, a set of data that came back from the 2021 “Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report“ showed that a gender difference continued to exist between men and women in relation to EI sickness benefits, yet when analyzing that data for post-claim follow-up, this was the disclaimer on the data that came back, “A breakdown of the findings above by gender is not available.” That is unacceptable. We exist, we are here and we are at work.
The New Democrats acknowledge that the 26 weeks is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough. Extending the framework from 26 weeks to 52 weeks is what is needed to accurately capture the needs of all people, allowing them to receive the necessary benefits during the recovery period. The government needs to do the right thing and do better for Canadians.
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