40th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 103
CONTENTS
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Employment Insurance

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton—Canso, Lib.):

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in these adjournment proceedings. What we have tried to do and what we will continue to do as the official opposition is to hold the government's feet to the fire and certainly make Canadians aware of promises made and promises not kept.

We refer to income trusts, where the government promised not to tax income trusts but then, months down the road, broke that promise and went ahead, costing retirees billions of dollars. We will continue to remind Canadians of that because there is a short-term memory problem on the government benches.

This adjournment proceeding gives me an opportunity to look back to a question that was posed to the Minister of Human Resources on May 27 when I had asked for support initiatives for fishermen and helpers on boats in the Atlantic lobster fishery who were facing very hard times and who are looking down the barrel of a very difficult winter because of the inaction on the part of the government.

Specifically, the response by the parliamentary secretary to my question on that day was that the government could do nothing because what the Liberal Party was proposing would increase payroll taxes by putting in a premium hike. His comment was, “We will not do that.”

Not only did the government do that, but it hit one out of the park with a $13 billion grand slam increase in payroll taxes to small and medium-sized businesses in this country.This will cripple businesses. In speaking with operators in my community, the impact that this will have will be felt by every community and small business operator in this country.

EI premiums are on the rise. It is estimated at $900 per employee, for a total increase of $13 billion.

Small businesses that are operating in my community, like Mike's Lunch, that will be about a $40,000 hit. Mike's Lunch is a small mom and pop operation restaurant that will feel the impact. For Pembroke Construction will see a $50,000 to $60,000 increase in those premiums rates because the government has increased taxes so much.

It is a hidden tax, and the government continues to deny it, but every independent operator across this country will feel the wrath of that.

I will keep my question very simple. Does the parliamentary secretary to the minister recall making that promise last May in this chamber?

Mr. Ed Komarnicki (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to look at the big picture. I do not know where he has been and whether he has listened to what has been happening in the House or not.

On the one hand he wants to stand up for the unemployed workers, but his party voted against extending EI benefits 5 to 20 weeks to approximately 190,000 people. I am wondering how he feels that standing up in the House and voting against it might be helpful to those who are unemployed.

I am not sure why the Liberals would vote against it except for the fact that they were looking at self-interest and, I gather, wanting an election that no Canadians wanted to have. The unemployed certainly did not want to have one. How he can stand up in the House and speak about that is certainly a wonder.

There is another part that concerns me. He talked about the $13 billion that might be spent on EI. The Liberals wanted to spend more than that with their 45-day work year, where one could work two months a year and get EI. It would cost some $4 billion. I wonder how he is going to pay for that. His leader already intimated that by raising taxes. He said that he is going to have to do that, but he has come out with even more promises of spending. I wonder how he is going to do that.

That is not what the biggest issue is. The biggest issue is the fact that, while the Liberals were in office, they reduced benefits to the unemployed and increased premiums, and collected approximately $50 billion from the workers, the employers and employees. Did they give that to the employers and employees? No, they did not. That should still be in the account if they had not spent it.

What did they do? They spent the money. They spent it on pet political projects that the Liberal Party wanted. The $50 billion is gone. If we tried to find it, the money is spent. It was spent by the Liberal Party and he has the fortitude to get up today to ask if we need to increase taxes. They are the party that taxes and spends. If they had the power, they would tax more and spend more.

We have reduced taxes into the billions of dollars to help the employed, the employers, and average Canadians get by. We have done that and we have ensured that they have more money in their pockets. We froze EI premiums, so that they do not have to be paid at this time by employers and employees. We have done a number of things that are very targeted. We extended benefits by five weeks across the country, helping approximately 350,000 Canadians.

We have extended the work-sharing program, helping about 165,000 Canadians maintain their jobs. That is something that has been very well received. There is a sharing where we pay EI and they work for part of the week. We put in a program to help long-tenured workers, those who have worked hard, paid into the system, and paid their premiums now finding themselves unfortunately without work. They are not able to find a job and have exhausted their EI benefits. We have extended to them 5 to 20 additional weeks.

What did this member and his party do? They voted against it. When it was in committee, we tried to persuade them to support this measure. If they allow other measures, they should support this measure. What did they do? They voted against each and every clause that was proposed in that bill and said no. They said no to 190,000 Canadians and were not unabashed about it. What was their logic? Did they have any reason? They did not. They were seeking an election. They were hoping that their leader would cause an election.

I hope now that those aspirations are dampened and that they will see their way to support Bill C-50 when it comes to the House next week and actually help Canadians. However, most importantly, we do not want to see the tax and spend days that we saw in the past. We do not want to see billions of dollars used for pet political projects.
Mr. Rodger Cuzner:

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transport would refer to that answer as fact free. We know that the premium rate was $3.12 per $100 in 1993. Kim Campbell was bringing it to $3.36 before the Liberal government took over in 1993. In each subsequent year, those rates came down to where it was $1.80 per $100. That is a fact.

There was a bit of a nest egg in the unemployment fund because when we took over, the unemployment rate was at 12.5%. We brought it down year after year and when we left, it was at 6.8% in this country. That was more people paying in and fewer people drawing out. I hope that these guys do not stay in too long because there is going to be a mess to clean up.

Mr. Ed Komarnicki:

Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear the hon. member thinks the $50 billion are a bit of a nest egg that can be used for political projects. It is not, and one would have to be careful to put him back in government.

The fact was the Liberals reduced benefits to the unemployed when the unemployment rate was 8.7%, the highest unemployment rate, and they tried to balance their books on the backs of the unemployed by using the $50 billion. Worse than that, they cut transfer payments by $25 billion to provinces, municipalities and towns, to those who needed those funds to build infrastructure.

We have not done that. We have not balanced our books on the backs of those people. We have put money into infrastructure to ensure Canadians will do well, not only today but tomorrow and into the future.

People can expect we will carry through on that. We propose further legislation to deal with those who are self-employed. The member can look forward to that legislation, and we would ask him to support it.

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