Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that the Liberals do not like the characterization of what they did with employment insurance. However, it is not a laughing matter for the hundreds of thousands of working people who have been denied employment insurance benefits because of the Liberal government's actions and now the current Conservative government's actions.
I would think that everybody in this House, if they were in touch with their constituents on Main Street, would understand if we were to call this the false premises act. Essentially that money was collected under false premises in a fraudulent way. When we say that money will be redirected to support those who are unemployed and then we take that money and apply it to general revenues, that is a false premise. Hundreds of thousands of workers and working families have been impacted by that decision.
The Liberals do not like being reminded of their record, but in this corner of the House the NDP speaks the truth and we are bringing up that record, and we will not let them forget it. However, we also will not let the Conservatives get away with what is clearly contrary to the practices as even covered by the Auditor General.
The Auditor General says that the actions proposed in Bill C-50 are not appropriate, that there must be a larger reserve put aside for the money that was collected under the pretense that it would go to help working people in this country. We have a situation where only one-third of unemployed women can actually claim employment insurance. That is a devastating situation for people who are unemployed in this country. Who are these people? Let us talk about the facts.
We had a debate last Wednesday night with the Minister of Finance and he was unable to even acknowledge the reality that Statistics Canada tells us about working families in this country. Two-thirds of working families are earning less now than they were back in 1989. The wealthiest of Canadian families are doing better than ever. They now take half of all the income in this country and their income has skyrocketed over that same period.
When we talk about middle class families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, they have lost a week's income each and every year since 1989. Lower middle class families earning between $20,000 and $40,000 a year have lost two weeks of income. Try getting by with no paycheques for two weeks. We have a profound understanding of what working families are living through.
The poorest of Canadians, including unemployed Canadians, have seen a devastating fall in income. They have lost a month and a half of income since 1989 for each and every year. We are talking about a catastrophic fall in income and the Conservatives are doing absolutely nothing to address this fundamental economic problem in this country.
What do they do? What is their solution? It is more and more corporate tax cuts. They just shovel the money off the back of a truck to the wealthy corporate sector, the most profitable corporations in the country. CEOs are doing well and that is all the Conservative government responds to, the agenda of corporate CEOs, not to the agenda of working families that are struggling to make ends meet, that are working longer and longer weeks and harder and harder, 200 hours on average. Canadian families are working more and more while at the same time earning less and less.
Perhaps the most insulting aspect of this is when the Minister of Finance stands in this House and says that jobs have been created in this country. We know what kind of jobs they are but the Minister of Finance could not even respond to that last week.
He and his government have kicked good manufacturing jobs out the door, family sustaining jobs paying over $20 an hour, on average $21 an hour, and they have created part time and temporary jobs that pay barely better than minimum wage.
The government, far from being proud of its economic record, should hang its head in shame for what it has done to the working people of this country. We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in a hemorrhaging of our manufacturing sector that is without precedence in Canadian history. What it has given us are temporary and part time service industry jobs that pay minimum wage. They do not come with pensions or any sort of benefits.
This hits younger Canadians particularly hard. Right now we have record levels of student debt that the Conservatives have done absolutely nothing about. Young Canadians see themselves going into a job market where there are low entry level wages and jobs that have no pension benefits. They can see, after working a 40 or 45 year career, retiring with no company pension.
What do the Conservatives offer? They offer the false pretense of taking $54 billion from the employment insurance fund and tucking it away, not putting it in any sort of debt reserve, not responding to the needs of Canadian working families, but tucking it away and putting $2 billion aside. That is less than 2¢ on the dollar that they are putting aside.
In this corner of the House we say, no, that is not appropriate accounting practices, which is what the Auditor General says, and it is not at all in the interests of working families who have struggled for 20 years while corporate executives have been given anything they want from the former Liberal government and the current Conservative government.
The Liberals and the Conservatives do not like their actions being characterized as a false premise. They do not like their actions being characterized as taking the money for one reason and then diverting it without consulting the public and without responding to the need in working communities from coast to coast to coast, but that is what has happened.
It is a false premise for the government to pretend it is doing something for working families when it essentially takes $52 billion away that came from hard-working families from coast to coast to coast. It is unfair and inappropriate and we are voting no.
