Scott Simms

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 29th, 2009]

Throw me a Timbit. Throw me a Timbit.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, did I just hear this correctly? Maybe I will check the record.

I have been called a hand puppet. I know my diminutive stature may dictate as such, but is there not a new coalition underway, or am I mistaken here?

The member has become such a hand puppet that he was not even born. I believe he was created by Jim Henson. It is insane in this particular matter that he could do this and it sounds so disingenuous. I find this absolutely incredible.

Let us get back to the fact that those members killed Kyoto. Let us talk about pay equity. If they felt so compelled, they should take the government down now and then change it. They should go ahead. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Now all of a sudden it is two years of down, down, down they go. What do we say? We say that maybe we will take the government down and that maybe there is no confidence. Now all of a sudden the story changes. No, actually we do have confidence. They flip a coin.

I used to be a weatherman and sometimes predictions would go off track. Sometimes we may want to flip a coin to predict weather. Maybe I should start flipping a coin to find out where the NDP are.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in this particular situation I respect some of the bills that he is speaking to in way of lowering the qualifying period. There is no doubt that some people in his riding and in my riding will benefit from this.

However, he did refer to the partisan aspect of it, and I am glad he did. In this particular situation, after going through two years, they wrote to me through these ten-percenters and talked about how the Liberals were propping up a particular government when it was such sacrilege to them.

If the member wants to throw out some partisan arrows, let us have a look. The NDP members, in this particular situation, have now done, in politics, in this particular House, the equivalent to a triple salchow in figure skating. They have twisted themselves into such a pretzel that now they have become this voice of reason when it was no holds barred before this.

I respect his ideas and his will to change EI but I do not respect how disingenuous the partisan snipes are.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Essex for his enthusiasm. He always jumps to his feet in my support. I take it as a great compliment.

Bill C-50 puts us in a situation where, once again, we bring up employment insurance. I have been here for five and a half years. Time and time again we have talked about employment insurance. We have several amendments on the table. Most of them have to do with the fact that members want to lower the qualification period, or at least the barriers to qualifications in that first period. With Bill C-50, we find ourselves talking about the back end of the system, meaning one gets additional weeks. Usually we do not get that. In private members' legislation we usually get a qualifying period that allows people who are unable to find work to benefit when under normal circumstances they would not.

I welcome this debate. However, I believe the bill completely lacks a focus on those people who are unable to qualify.

Over the past few years we have seen several resolutions passed in the House; some have been voted down and some have been voted for. They have included things like lowering the hours to qualify, such as 360 hours for re-entrance. We also talked about 55% to 60% of the benefits to be paid out when one is receiving EI benefits.

Some of the other issues, including the two-week waiting period, also come up, but time and time again they come up as private members' bills. Now we have government legislation in this direction.

Let me start with my own riding of Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor. I want to talk about two types of industry and juxtapose their situation with the intent of this legislation. Let me start with seasonal work and the shrimp plant workers. Work in the plant is a seasonal occupation, as anyone in this country can understand. I am hearing a lot from people who work in particular shrimp plants. Prices have been low. There has been labour unrest in certain cases. They cannot seem to settle on a price. People are unable to qualify for EI in the off season because they lack the hours to qualify.

Bill C-50 does absolutely nothing to address that. At some point I hope the government will give credence to that issue. I would like to see it go to 360 hours, for the reasons I just stated. The majority of my constituents would feel the same way, and I get a lot of feedback from them.

Let me look at another aspect, and this is where we get to the crux of the matter on Bill C-50. Time and again members of the government will stand in the House and say the bill does wonderful things for the long-tenured worker. I would like to give an illustration of a long-tenured worker who has many questions. I live in the town of Bishop's Falls near Grand Falls-Windsor. It recently suffered a major setback when the AbitibiBowater mill closed in the spring of this year. There were upward of 700 people who lost their jobs. Many of these people have called me. They were loggers. We go back to the idea of seasonal work. They were loggers who worked so many weeks of the year and the other weeks could only receive 55% of their income through EI.

Many people will say they do not want to feed into that. They do not want to have someone claiming EI time and time again when they can do other work. One has to understand that this is an aspect of rural Canada. All parties in the House agree it is difficult for seasonal workers in rural areas to get work in the off season and therefore this system was required. We still need someone to log our forests. We still need someone to farm. We still need people to pave our roads. Rural Canada, especially rural Newfoundland, is now so popular because of its rural aspect. Who will be waiting to show people around? It will be tourism workers. They will be in the same situation. People ask why they cannot do something else. In a town of 100 people or less, there is not a lot of industry to go around. This type of policy helps sustain communities such as this.

I have 172 communities in my riding and only one town, Grand Falls-Windsor, has 13,000 people. I have a collection of communities that is vast but the people are proud and this is the type of legislation they need to sustain themselves within their community.

I want to go back to the logger situation. Bill C-50 is what I have a problem with and the loggers want me to ask the government about a situation. If a claimant is paid less than 36 weeks of regular benefits in the 260 weeks before the beginning of the benefit period, they can qualify. What does that mean? Of the 260 weeks, which is approximately five years, if people have received benefits for over 36 weeks, they are out and receive nothing more. Loggers are included in that but my definition of a logger is a long-tenured worker. What do the Conservatives say to them? What do they say to the shrimp plant workers in this situation?

There is a lot of talk in my province from many corners and not just us. I will quote an individual who has done extensive work on the EI system. I respect her opinion because she probably knows more about the EI system than any person I know. Her name is Lana Payne and she is the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Labour Federation. She has a few things to say about this. She said that Bill C-50 divides the unemployed into two groups: those deemed deserving by the Conservatives of extra benefits and those who are not.

She went on to say that the proposed changes by leaving so many unemployed out essentially blames people for their job losses by penalizing workers who may have had to avail of EI benefits in the past five years.

That brings me to my next point. Many Conservatives have said that they have had people working in the auto industry and had auto plants in their riding and have people who work in newsprint mills and other types of mills. I have a question for them. It is not seasonal work, but in the past five years those mills have suffered shutdowns. The mill was shut down for whatever reason: too much inventory or market conditions persist such that they had to close the mill down for a period of time.What did these people do? They went on EI. For a mill worker, a long-tenured worker, if he or she has received more than 36 weeks, which is about seven weeks a year, which is highly possible, they are out.

The Conservatives tell us that they had to cut it off somewhere. Well, this is not the place to be doing that. I do not think it was well thought out in this situation. We could have done something for these individuals. They are long-tenured workers who, through no fault of their own, were in a situation where they were laid off for a period of time which put them in a very rough situation.

Lana Payne said it quite well. As a matter of fact, it is not just Newfoundland and Labrador but it is also the Canadian federation, the CAW. It is of the same ilk where it claims that the government will qualify 190,000 people. People with the CAW are experts. They are not paid to confront the government. They are not just the opposition. These are people who actually stick up for the people who have jobs or used to. I do admit that some people in the mill at Grand Falls-Windsor where I am from will receive extra benefits, if need be, but a lot of them have gone away to work which disqualifies them yet once again.

Finally, just before last January, if workers were laid off before 2009, they are out. So much for Lewisporte Wholesalers in my riding. I do agree that we need more benefits but this particular bill leaves out so many to the point that it becomes an injustice to actually spend so much time to help so few people.

[Made in Canada Act, September 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure time is limited so I will make this question very quick. She has quite a bit of enthusiasm for her disdain of the current government. This is a simple question. Does she have confidence in this government, yes or no?

[Made in Canada Act, September 18th, 2009]

Not any more.

[Employment Insurance Act, September 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that it is very important for Quebec, but it is also very important for Newfoundland and Labrador. Why? Because we are talking about forestry.

The member talks about long-tenured forestry workers. I want to clarify something with this bill when he talks about long-tenured workers because that seems to be the message we are getting from the government.

There is one classification of forestry workers who are considered long-tenured and they are the loggers. On average, they claim two or three months of EI benefits per year. They have been loggers for a good deal of time, in some cases up to 30 years, on average 10 to 15 years. Certainly, for this particular legislation, over the past five years, they have accumulated more than the required 36 hours.

Here is the problem. I would consider loggers to be long-tenured, but they do not qualify under this particular legislation. What am I supposed to say to these individuals who say, “The Conservatives told us it was fair”? It is, however, not fair to these people. Perhaps specifically, the member from Quebec would like to tell me how I am supposed to deal with that situation?

[Employment Insurance Act, September 17th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for talking about the strong banking system that we have. On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada, I say that he is welcome.

I would like to discuss some of the issues. He talked about the notional deficit and general revenues. The general revenues were used at the time to erase what was a $50 billion deficit. No, I think it was $42 billion back then, was it not? It is hard to keep track. However, that was the deficit back then as opposed to the deficit the present government has today.

I would like to touch on one subject. He talked passionately about long-tenured workers and the forestry industry. I would like to show him an illustration, based on Bill C-50, of what we are talking about. There are a few gentlemen in my riding who have called and they are loggers. The logging situation is that it is primarily a seasonal industry. If he is so concerned, and he says that this bill would do so much for people in the forestry industry, what about a logger?

This is the situation. Subclause (2.1) states quite clearly that over the past 260 weeks, “If a claimant was paid less than 36 weeks”. Hopefully my math does not fail me, but that is about 7.2 weeks per year over a five-year period, which basically means that Bill C-50 means nothing for that logger he speaks so passionately about. They are out.

I would like him to comment on that. When it comes to seasonal work, why will those people he speaks so passionately about not be accepted by Bill C-50?

[Fisheries, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, recently, four experts and former government negotiators argued that the latest international agreement tabled here in the House regarding the north Atlantic fisheries will be a disaster to Canadian sovereignty. Now the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador calls this agreement “a totally unacceptable situation”.

How can the Conservatives seriously consider this when they talk about Arctic sovereignty and yet are giving away our exclusive rights on the east coast? Will the government take this flawed deal off the table and cast it back stamped “denied”?

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want my colleague to discuss the situation on this free trade agreement and our party's position, versus the position of the NDP which was brought up earlier. The confusing part was with respect to the earlier speaker. They want to study it further when in fact they want to do what the NDP used to use, which was the wrecking ball diplomacy type of action. Lately NDP members have been a little more collegial, and I do not know what compels that, but in this case we are certainly arguing for further study on this.

Also, because the member does have an agricultural background, I would like him to talk about some of the sectors that will benefit from this free trade deal with Colombia.