[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, January 23, 1996
.1409 
[English]
The Chairman: Order.
What we are doing this afternoon and what we will be continuing to do for most of tomorrow and part of Thursday is the continuation of the hearings that began last week on the study of Bill C-111, an act respecting employment insurance in Canada.
.1410
We have with us officials of the Department of Human Resources Development, led by the deputy minister, Mr. Jean-Jacques Noreau, who will begin a process of taking us through the legislation. This process will begin this afternoon and will continue tomorrow morning and afternoon and on Thursday, which is the time we have made available for this process.
I believe Mr. Noreau will give us an explanation of how his departmental officials propose to take us through the legislation so that we may, in a sense, focus on the aspects that they are covering knowing that other aspects on which we might want to ask questions will be dealt with at another part of the presentation.
So the purpose for this week is for members of the committee, as well as those interested in this very important piece of legislation, to become familiar with exactly how the employment insurance, as it is proposed in this bill, is designed to work. That will help us later in assessing the legislation and in proposing and formulating amendments to it.
I would like first to welcome the officials from the department to the table: Mr. Noreau; Ms Norine Smith, who is acting executive director of insurance; and Ms Karen Jackson, who is director general for labour market policy. They will be joined by Diane Carroll, acting director, policy analysis, a little bit later.
I understand that our officials have a fair bit to tell us. I will turn the floor over to Mr. Noreau, who will begin. We will allow you, sir, to explain to us how we will be educated this afternoon.
Mr. Jean-Jacques Noreau (Deputy Minister, Department of Human Resources Development): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First let me say how pleased I am to be with you. I look forward to this week, which, as you said, is designed to increase our common understanding of the major features of this fairly complex legislation.
As you suggested, Mr. Chairman, perhaps it will be useful if I outline the sequencing of events this week as we discussed it with the clerk so you will know what chunks of major areas will be covered in the respective sessions.
This afternoon I will make some comments on the overall legislation, including putting in perspective the impact data package, which we will table for you this afternoon.
The second part of the meeting this afternoon will be devoted to Karen Jackson taking you through the major features of that impact data package so that by the end of the day you will be familiar with and able to use this booklet of projected impacts of this legislation.
Tomorrow morning Norine Smith will essentially take you through parts I and III of the proposed legislation. Part I is the revised eligibility system to benefit the new benefits regime, the hours base, the earnings base, etc., and part III is the financing framework and premiums issues.
Tomorrow afternoon we will be focusing on a couple of the issues that the minister identified as needing further work when he appeared before you last week. One of those is interruption in earnings, the so-called gap, and how these gaps can be filled through work generation: what are the examples and the ideas that are being put forward to fill those gaps, including the probable use, the suggested use, of the transitional jobs fund of $300 million over three years.
Tomorrow afternoon I will also have available officials from the regions that are doing concrete work with communities and employers and employees to begin already to address some of these interruption-in-earnings issues. If the committee members are interested, they could hear some of the concrete, real things that are being done by our regional officials. They will be available here should you wish to invite them to tell you about that.
.1415
Finally, on Thursday we will turn the session to part II of the legislation, which deals with the employment benefits, the employment measures, what new approaches are suggested in the legislation. We will then talk about the national employment service, and the person appearing before you will be Mr. Ian Green, who is the assistant deputy minister, employment programs and education programs.
So our goal, as you stated it, Mr. Chairman, is to try to cover in an objective and analytical way as much of the most technically complex and difficult issues this week as we can so that when you reach the end of the week you will be in a better position to have a good understanding of what is at play and then move to the next phase of your hearings; that is, receiving groups and representations from others.
So that's the general economy of the week as it has been planned by ourselves and the clerk.
The Chairman: I'll stop you there and ask, purely on the question of the sequence, if there are any quick questions on the approach from the committee members. I'm just referring to if there is anything about what is being covered that is not clear. That might be helpful so everybody will know the procedure we're following.
[Translation]
Are there any questions on the sequence of the presentation that we will hear this afternoon, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, so that we can make sure that we're all on the same wave-length?
Mr. Dubé, did you wish to speak?
Mr. Dubé (Lévis): I understand the sequence, the agenda and the discussion plan, but depending on how you intend to proceed, will we hear a presentation and ask questions afterwards?
The Chairman: It will be interactive. We will begin with the presentations which will be followed by a question period for the members.
Mr. Dubé: So it's our usual procedure.
The Chairman: Exactly.
[English]
Is that clear to everybody else?
Mr. Noreau, I'll let you continue.
Mr. Noreau: As I indicated, this legislation is a complex piece, but its objectives are fairly straightforward. One, it is trying to get people who use the program back into paying jobs more quickly and to increase their earned income. Secondly, it is trying to rebalance the insurance program and bring it in line with modern labour market issues that have emerged over the last decade or more: part-time workers, part-year workers, multiple job holders - all these phenomena. Thirdly, the goals are to make sure that this insurance program will be sustainable over the long run.
Needless to say, we are pleased to be given this opportunity to shed some light on some of the more complex aspects of this legislation that might be less well understood and some elements that are fairly technical and need some time to put our collective heads around.
In my brief introductory remarks I will try to address four topics this afternoon. One, I will be tabling an impact data package later this afternoon, and Karen Jackson will take you through it. We will take you through it, the tables and the numbers; but, before doing so, I owe it to you to situate these impact data in the proper context and in the right perspective. I'll try to do that as the first element in my remarks.
Secondly, it's important for us to expand a little bit on the monitoring function that was referred to last week by the minister and to share with you some initial thoughts about this function and how we begin to see how it could work, because it will be an important element of this legislation. It is a new feature that I would like to describe a little bit better for you.
.1420
Thirdly, I would like to touch on and discuss further two issues that the minister highlighted at the last meeting as things that needed further work by the committee over the next period. One is the income averaging and the impact on seasonal workers, or the gaps or interruption in earnings, and the second is the specific impacts of the proposed legislation on students and their employment patterns.
Fourth, I would like to spend a few minutes focusing on part II of the legislation, which deals with the employment benefits or the employment measures. As I said before, part I deals with the unemployment benefits, whereas part II deals with the employment benefits. It's worth spending a little bit of time exposing the potential of this new legislation, the part II, especially with respect to the work at the federal-provincial level.
First, let me try to put the data package that we will be tabling for you into context. The data that we will produce and take you through this afternoon on the probable impact of the new legislation on individuals is based on the best evidence available today. It provides solid estimates based on current patterns of behaviour of workers and employers. But it does not - and we will insist on this - take into account or does not incorporate change in behaviour or change in habits or change in decisions made by employers and employees when they are confronted by the new rules of eligibility and the new features of the legislation.
We certainly expect that there will be major changes in those habits and those decisions, but we have no way of quantifying them. Therefore they are not reflected in the impact data that we will be giving to you this afternoon.
It is clear that anticipated changes in behaviour are a very important aspect of this new legislation. In fact, it might be the most important aspect. That's why we are rebalancing the incentives and the disincentives to encourage and reward work better and to make sure that we will have eliminated as best we can the disincentives to work and the opportunities for the questionable use or misuse that, as we all know, have crept into the handling of this program.
For example, we know that workers and employers currently tailor their behaviour and their decisions to take into account the UI regulations. Research shows that workers are 50% to 60% more likely to quit or to be laid off at the point at which they qualify for UI. It is no coincidence that one in twenty seasonal jobs ends exactly at the point where the worker qualifies for maximum benefits.
Here is what the owner of a Nova Scotia enterprise wrote to Minister Axworthy regarding the current UI system. The man is operating a little ski hill.
- My staff take a UI-sponsored two- to four-month vacation from the long weekend in May to
the first week of July or August each year. I could structure their work to make it last all year
long, but why bother when it is so easy to do it this way?
Our evaluations tell us that workers will change their decision-making when rules changes. For example, research has shown that when the entrance requirements to qualify for UI were increased in past reforms, 72% of the workers were able to find the extra weeks of work they needed in order to qualify.
.1425
Employers too adjust their decisions and their behaviour. A pulp and paper firm in western Newfoundland negotiated a contract with its workers that guaranteed 12 weeks of work - the minimum required to qualify for UI - if they accepted a wage freeze. So this has been factored into a lot of economic decisions that people make - rightly, I guess, since the system is there and available - and takes into account the rules of the system.
In summary, the data that will be presented to you over the next few days represents a baseline, or, in a sense, a worst-case scenario, because it estimates impact of the employment insurance legislation on people's UI benefits based on the status of their current behaviour. But we know that employers and workers will adjust their behaviour to accommodate the new rules and these behavioural changes are likely to increase workers' annual earnings, a measure more important than just income benefits.
That brings me to my second point, the monitoring function. It is precisely because we cannot predict that future with certainty, because we cannot show you or Canadians the exact impact of the introduction of that legislation on individuals, first, that it is phased over six years to allow time for people to adjust and, second, that we have proposed this monitoring function to take stock of what is happening in terms of adjustment to the new rules, whether it is by communities, employers, employees, business, etc.
This monitoring function - that's my second point - is a central element of this EI package. We will monitor the impact of the new legislation on individuals, communities, the Canadian economy, and the local economies. This monitoring centre will coordinate the collection of information primarily, but not solely, from high unemployment areas in order to determine how people are adapting to the new rules.
We will want to do this work in cooperation with the provincial governments, because social assistance recipients and UI recipients often travel back and forth over the jurisdictional line and it's important for the data to be shared with the provincial governments.
This work will feed into the first report of the employment insurance commission, due to Parliament by the end of 1998. We anticipate that a fair amount of that information can be provided through administrative data systems, statistical analysis, surveys, etc., but we also think that we will need a capacity to conduct more direct observations in the field. Some of that adjustment, some of those changes, will not always be captured by statistics and cold analyses. I think we will have to have an ability to select in a number of communities, to go into the field.
That's why the minister announced that there would be a little group located in Charlottetown, because obviously we anticipate that much of the impact will have to be assessed in the Atlantic region.
I just wanted to make the point that this is not only a matter of collecting data; it will have to be supplemented or complemented by more direct observations and more direct surveys of what is happening.
The third issue I want to cover in my introductory remarks is to pick up on a couple of the topics that last week the minister indicated needed further work in the committee. The first is income averaging. Under the proposed legislation, income benefits, as distinct from eligibility determination - that's very important to keep in mind; the hours determine eligibility, then the levels of earnings determine the level of benefits, and that's where the averaging comes in - will be calculated on the earnings in a fixed number of weeks prior to the loss of a job. The fixed period will vary from 14 weeks in high unemployment areas to 20 weeks in low unemployment areas. This means that those so-called gaps - that is, the weeks with no earnings during this fixed period - will now be taken into account. They'll be factored in, and this will reduce the weekly benefits of the claimant.
.1430
In the current program these gaps are ignored, because the benefits are based on earnings from the last twelve to twenty weeks of work regardless of when they occurred over the last year.
There is a perception that a great number of workers have gaps in employment. When my officials review the data with you this week, you will see evidence that this is not, we think, as big - quantitatively, at least - a problem as some have suggested. Analysis shows that across the country only 10% of claimants have breaks in employment of more than four weeks, and this likely, possibly, overestimates the group that would be affected, because as I mentioned earlier, past reforms show many individuals who face reduced benefits find additional work.
I told you a few minutes ago that when we moved the entrance requirements to fourteen weeks a few years ago, 72% of the workers found the necessary work. So only 10% of the claimants have breaks greater than four weeks, and even at that a fair amount of them, if experience is any indication, would be able to find a fair amount of the work required. I think that's where the importance of how we handle and use this $300 million transitional fund in helping workers in high-unemployment areas to fill those gaps comes into play.
The employment measures.... I would suggest if maybe you have a few minutes on Wednesday afternoon to hear what is beginning to happen in the regions where the officials are trying to address this question of gaps with real-life employers, real-life business owners, and real-life unemployed people, you hear about those. You will spend more time tomorrow afternoon on this.
The second issue the minister raised last week deals with students. The issue has been raised that very many students work part-time and that the proposed reform will require them to pay premiums, yet they may not qualify for benefits. In fact, we think the employment insurance legislation will have a minor impact on the level of premium payments for students but important benefits for all part-time workers, as we will demonstrate through the impact data this afternoon.
Students who work full-time during the summer will see their premiums fall with the reduction in premium rate. Those who work, for example, 14 hours a week for $7 per hour will pay less than $3 per week in premiums under the new legislation. But in return, these hours will be ensured, which is not the case now. This is important not just for students but also for thousands of other part-time workers and multiple-job holders.
New rules will help part-time workers who are now trapped in fourteen-hour work weeks get more hours because it will eliminate the incentive for employers to limit hours. Employers do not pay premiums, as you know, if hours are kept below fifteen hours a week. Indeed, as you may remember - and we will take you through those numbers again this afternoon - more than1.3 million individuals will see their premiums refunded because they earn less than $2,000, and of these about 250,000 are students.
I just wanted to put the students' perceived issue in perspective so we can spend the time this week to make sure we understand the ins and outs and the distinctions about the impact on them.
[Translation]
I would now like to say a few words about Part II of the bill, which deals with employment and employability measures.
We tend to give a great deal of attention to Part I of the bill and its impact on individuals, their families, their communities and their employers, and that's quite normal. It's normal because it's about benefits and these changes to the eligibility rules directly affect Canadians.
.1435
But I must draw your attention to Part II, which you will hear more about Thursday morning. I would like to explain the context of the employment measures and the national placement service.
If you examine the bill, and with your permission I will identify the sections because I think it's important that we read them carefully together, you will see that section 57 lists a series of guidelines that dictate how the federal government and the Employment Insurance Commission will have to conduct their relations with the provinces over the coming years.
For example, section 57 stipulates that:
- 57.(1) Employment benefits and support measures under this part shall be established in
accordance with the following guidelines:
- a) harmonization with provincial employment initiatives to ensure that there is no
unnecessary overlap or duplication;
[English]
- flexibility to allow significant decisions about implementation to be made at a local level.
I emphasize that part because it dictates the behaviour of the federal government in the implementation of these employment measures and in its relations with the provinces.
[English]
Another part of that clause basically imposes on the commission the obligation to work in concert with the provinces in implementing the employment measures. The interpretation we give to this and we have given to provinces already is that, for example, if a province has a program comparable to the employment measures we would like to see used in the context of that legislation, our bias will be to deliver the program through the provincial program rather than to invent a new one from the federal perspective.
[Translation]
Section 59 defines benefits and employment measures in very broad and flexible terms, thus leaving a great deal of scope for negotiation and specific interpretation in each province, and therefore allows the negotiation of various agreements that would be different, variable and adapted to each province.
Lastly, section 61 - and there will be others that you will undoubtedly want to examine closely - expresses in legal terms the commitment made by the prime minister to withdraw the federal government from manpower training.
[English]
I wanted to draw your attention to these features, Mr. Chairman, because I think in addition to talking about employment measures, about reinvestment in employment measures of some of the savings realized through reform, this part II of the proposed legislation provides a unique opportunity for a new way of doing business with the provinces in this area and a new approach to labour market programming between the two levels of government. We should be able - and work has already started with Quebec, with New Brunswick, with P.E.I., and I'm going to travel to Alberta later this week - to begin the process of explaining to the provinces the flexibility this legislation provides, how provinces can enter into a discussion process with us, so if and when the legislation is effective, is in place by the summer of 1996, already some work would have been done to advance the implementation of the employment measures as indicated in part II of the legislation.
.1440
I'm going to stop there, Mr. Chairman. In concluding,I just want to say that in a few minutes you will be taken by Karen Jackson through a data package we will be tabling. It is important to agree that it is not debatable that legislation of this magnitude, of this importance, and of this depth in terms of the restructuring of the program, has and will have important impacts on individuals, communities, employers, etc.
The key point to keep in mind is that we will share with you the impacts that are known, but some of these impacts are not known. They will be revealed only as people - real people, real employers, real employees, and real community leaders - do start making decisions in light of the new set of incentives and disincentives they are confronted with. Until such time as we have been able to monitor that, there are some impacts we're unable to come to grips with. So if I have one major point to leave with you, it would be that we will share all we can share with you of what is known, but we will have to work together over the next couple of years to reveal those impacts that are not known now and that will only be known with use of the program, the rules, and the employment benefits the legislation is proposing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Noreau.
We'll now go directly to Karen Jackson, who will begin her exposé on the data package.
Mr. Noreau: Unless there are questions before that.
The Chairman: I think we'd be better to proceed to Ms Jackson.
Incidentally, for the information of those who are in the room, this briefing, as you know, is public and it's being televised. So your presentation is being fully transmitted to all Canadians.
.1445
Mr. Noreau: It's now history.
The Chairman: Current events. Our process of education is being shared by many.
Whenever you are ready, Ms Jackson, you may begin.
Ms Karen Jackson (Director General, Labour Market Policy, Department of Human Resources Development): What we have are approximately 30 tables of data. I would intend to look briefly at each of the key tables that you will find in section 1 and section 2 of the package, the overview and the general data tables. Then when you get to section 3 you actually have more detailed data by province.
I didn't intend to take the committee through each and every one of those tables, but, rather, to take one or two of them and just explain them so that you will know what we've presented and how we've presented the data.
Likewise for section 4 - not to take you through each and every one of them, but to choose one or two of them and explain them to make sure people understand what's there.
When we get to section 5, what we have is essentially some information on the unemployment insurance account. As part of Norine's presentation tomorrow, she is going to go into greater depth about the account and how it works. We put this information here simply so that you will have it in one spot for easy reference.
Part B includes some additional information about employment benefits that will be covered by officials who will be here on Thursday morning.
Having said that, my objective this afternoon was to look, for the most part, at impacts of the changes in the insurance benefits, or part I of the legislation.
What we have for you in this package is actually baseline data for two years, 1997-98, and 2001-02. We've done that because 1997-98 will indeed be the data that we're using, up to and including the writing of the monitoring report, which is to be tabled in Parliament as of December 1998. The year 2001-02 represents a year of full maturity of the reform of Bill C-111.
If that is satisfactory, then I shall turn to section 1.
The first overview table you see is indeed a table that was made available when Bill C-111 was first tabled. What it tells you is that in 1997-98 reductions in insurance benefits will total $1.2 billion and that $400 million of that reduction will be reinvested in employment measures, leaving a net impact of $815 million, or 5%.
Going down to read the second half of the table, which applies to the year 2001-02, you can see that when reform reaches maturity in that year, the reduction in insurance benefits will be$1.9 billion, an overall reduction in the insurance benefits of 11%; but with $800 million in reinvestment the net impact stands at $1.125 billion, or a reduction of 6%.
Mr. Noreau: May I ask if the committee members are still with us?
Mr. Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce): I think it's important that they explain these impact tables to us now, but in order for us to ask intelligent questions we have quietly to read a lot of this material. I hope we're not expected to respond immediately. I'm looking at these. They are very complicated. I appreciate the briefing, but I personally would have a difficult time in digesting all of this and putting good questions immediately afterwards.
.1450
Mr. Mifflin (Bonavista - Trinity - Conception): I'd be quite interested in knowing what the principles were that determined the different percentages by province. For example, I note that Newfoundland is minus 13% against the overall average of 6%, New Brunswick is 11%. New Brunswick and Newfoundland seem to have been singled out for the highest percentage decrease. I'd be interested in knowing the principles applied that made these provinces different from the other provinces.
Ms Jackson: The figures you see here are the impacts as a result of all the elements of the changes in the insurance benefits. Once you take the entire package of reform elements that will impact on insurance benefits - that's the introduction of the earnings-in-hours based system, the tougher clawback, the reduction of the maximum duration - all of that combined results in $85 million less being paid out in insurance benefits in Newfoundland in the year 1997-98. That's what it is.
Mr. Mifflin: That's obvious to me. What is not obvious to me is why that has amounted to 13%, as opposed to something less. I do note that you put more money back in on a percentage basis.
Maybe I should ask the question a different way. Did you start at 6% and 7% and work backwards? In other words, if whatever rules you applied caused Newfoundland to lose 13%, you put more back on a percentage basis than you did for some of the less affected provinces so the overall percentage would be the same in each province.
Ms Jackson: The net reduction, the net impact.
Mr. Mifflin: The net reduction on a percentage basis.
Ms Jackson: Yes.
Mr. Mifflin: The only difficulty with that, of course, is that they're not equally weighted, because the taking away is not the same as the giving, in effect. I think the deputy knows what I mean.
Mr. Noreau: The simple principle here is that $85 million over $670 million is 13% in Newfoundland.
Mr. Mifflin: Yes. The 13% is out of people's pockets. The percentage put back in is not necessarily directly attributable to earnings, if you see what I mean. It's involved in -
Mr. Noreau: It's directly attributable to a percentage of the $800 million that is reinvested in employment measures.
Mr. Mifflin: To create jobs.
Mr. Noreau: Yes. If you're looking for a principle or guideline, the government tried to keep the impact in each province at maturity below 7%. Therefore -
Mr. Mifflin: And roughly the same in each province.
Mr. Noreau: Yes, that's right.
Mr. Mifflin: Thank you.
The Chairman: I'm going to entertain some questions of fact and understanding of specific matters, provided we discipline ourselves to contain our questions to that and in that way allow the witnesses to get through the presentation. I'm going to be appealing to our collective discipline in confining our questions to questions of fact, which is the nature of the question Mr. Mifflin posed.
Mr. Noreau: Can I make a point, Mr. Chairman? I think Mr. Allmand has a very good point, but if this afternoon we could make you familiar with the tables, so you're able to read them, that would be our purpose. We do not -
The Chairman: That's the purpose of the afternoon session.
Mr. Noreau: Yes. Our objective would be that you're able to move in that booklet with relative ease and use the data in future days, not that you master it completely.
The Chairman: Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott (Fredericton - York - Sunbury): When we go through the exercise, my guess would be that other information these tables would reveal might be of interest to us, and it would be an appropriate time, I suppose, to ask for cross-tabs on how the regional might break down as against incomes and so on. I presume that information exists. I would make the point that if we ask for that now, we may get it before Thursday, so we could include it in this discussion. If we wait until the end of the exercise to ask for it, we may not have the same opportunity.
The Chairman: I would ask members again perhaps to collect their questions on additional information so we can present those questions to the department in an orderly fashion.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde, you have the floor.
.1455
Ms Lalonde (Mercier): Since we did not obtain these documents despite our repeated requests, I ask that we be able to express further requests, at least until tomorrow morning, to which we might receive a response by the end of our work here. I understand that Mr. Noreau and his colleagues will be here until the end of this meeting, and perhaps longer if we need them, but among other things I am thinking of graphs that we had obtained two years ago, during our first briefing. I would really like to see the regional comparison of the effect of the two unemployment insurance reforms, namely the one that resulted from Bill C-17 and this one. The objective was clearly to reduce the number of what is called repeat users and to make access more difficult for unemployed persons with "short employment duration".
I just wanted to caution you, so to speak. For our part, we will listen carefully and ask relevant questions, reserving our initial general comments for the first complete analysis.
The Chairman: All right.
[English]
Mrs. Brown, on a point of fact or clarification.
Mrs. Brown (Calgary Southeast): It's a point of clarification.
Mr. Noreau, I would like to know how you define ``impact''. There are many graphs, many percentages, many words in here that talk in very distant and perhaps somewhat relative terms about something that I feel is at the very core of this whole effort, and that is job creation and people. I'd like to know how you define ``impact'' in terms of job creation, because I don't see any numbers here that answer that question about job creation. We have heard that so many hundreds of thousands of jobs are going to be created, so many hundreds of thousands of people were going to be employed. So the term ``impact'' and its definition are really what I'm looking for in this discussion.
Mr. Noreau: We remember your question about jobs and we were planning to do that tomorrow morning.
Mrs. Brown: What is the definition of ``impact''? What exactly is your definition in these terms?
Ms Jackson: As I explained, what we have in part A of this package are impacts on insurance benefits, on either a person's ability to qualify for unemployment insurance, the size of the cheque that a person will receive, or the length of time during which that person will be eligible for an income benefit.
Mr. Noreau: If I could just rephrase, the quantifiable aspects of the EI benefit changes are time and duration, money, and eligibility. This is what these impacts are all about. Then we divide them by province. There are some gender analysis, some age groups, etc. They are the quantifiable aspects that we can, with the caveat I made before, project into the future.
The Chairman: The numbers we are referring to are dollars or people in terms of impacts.
Mr. Noreau: Yes, and sometimes you will see weeks or hours.
The Chairman: Per capita or total dollar reductions or number of people affected.
Mr. Noreau: Yes.
The Chairman: Those are the units of account we will be working with.
Mr. Noreau: Exactly.
Mr. Mifflin: I notice that on page 3, giving the total sum of the UI benefit reduction for all the industries, the fishing industry is not included. Is there a particular reason for that?
The Chairman: Perhaps we could not get ahead but rather let her get to those.
Mr. Noreau: Let's get to that.
Mr. Mifflin: Oh, I'm sorry; I thought we were looking at all of section -
The Chairman: She just did page 1, so let her move along.
Mr. Noreau: She's still on page 1.
[Translation]
Mr. Mifflin: I'm sorry.
[English]
Ms Jackson: Turning to table 2, this gives benefit-to-contribution ratios by province, again for the two years 1997-98 and 2001-02. By ``benefit-to-contribution ratio'' we mean total insurance benefits paid out compared to premium revenues collected.
.1500
I will draw your attention to a couple of lines. I would suggest we look at 2001-02 just so I can explain what is here.
For instance, if we look across the line for Alberta, what we have is that without Bill C-111 we would project that in 2001-02, 81¢ of every dollar collected in premiums in Alberta would be paid out as benefits. With Bill C-111, in 2001-02, 83¢ of every dollar collected in Alberta will be paid out in benefits in that province. That having been said, after reform, at the aggregate level, Alberta will continue to contribute $256 million more than it will receive in benefits.
What this table also tells you is that all provinces that are net beneficiaries now will remain net beneficiaries after reform, and vice versa.
In table 3 it's the same principle. It's benefit-to-contribution ratios by industry. Tables 3 and 4 again give you the two different years, 1997-98 and 2001-02. If you look at 2001-02, in table 4, just to give you one example, we could look at the accommodation, food, and beverage services. Here we have a 9% reduction overall in benefits paid out to workers in that industrial sector. Benefits are falling from $767 million to $696 million. If you look at the benefit-to-contribution ratios, under Bill C-111 it will be $1.52 to be paid out in benefits for every dollar collected in premiums. Without reform that number would have been $1.59.
Mr. Noreau: The story of that line is that the accommodation, food, and beverage services sector is impacted on negatively by the reform, to the tune of 9%. However, it remains a net winner in what it pays into the pot and what it gets out of it.
The Chairman: Mr. Mifflin had mentioned the fishing industry. Could you address that? It refers to those tables.
Ms Jackson: Two points about that. The first one is that fish processing is found within the manufacturing category. Later we'll have some final analysis on self-employed fishermen.
Ms Norine Smith (Acting Executive Director, Insurance, Department of Human Resources Development): Yes, we will. The minister has promised that to the committee in a few weeks' time. We'll be ready to provide you with more information about fishing regulations at that time.
Ms Jackson: Indeed, this is one of those instances where we can push our data only so far. For instance, we cannot get reliable data if we break down these industrial sectors any further. That's why you'll find fish processing in manufacturing.
Mr. Noreau: Mr. Chairman, would it be useful if I asked Norine to describe the database in three minutes and to explain how we get to those data and at what point they become questionable in terms of reliability when the sample gets too small?
Can you describe the database and the modelling we do to turn out those numbers?
I think it's important for you to understand where that comes from.
.1505
Ms Smith: The researchers in the UI policy branch have a research database that is pulled from our administrative file. It's a 10% sample, so we have one in ten of the people who have been on UI in any particular year. It's a very lengthy file. It's a 20 or 25-year file. It enables us to follow claimants through their claim histories over a fairly extended period. I might also say that this data file is very complex and our most recent data in our database are 1993 data.
To undertake this type of analysis, what we effectively do is for each claimant on our data files we recalculate their benefit according to the proposed rules under the new legislation. So we know the information about each claimant from their record of employment and what characteristics they have that gave them access to the program to begin with. We use the data to recalculate their claim totally on the basis of the new rules, add it all up, and find out who's getting a little more, who's getting a little less, who no longer qualifies, who qualifies in the future, who didn't in the past, who gets a larger cheque, who gets a smaller cheque.... We add it all up to create the impact figures you are finding here.
This impact analysis, I might also emphasize, is only dealing with the benefit side of the reform. We have not attempted, and it would be a very complex modelling exercise, beyond our analytical capabilities to do very effectively, to roll together both the financing side and the benefit side. It's strictly the benefit side of the reform.
The Chairman: Ms Jackson, you can continue.
Ms Jackson: Table 5 shows you some impacts by gender and age. You will see, looking at men and women, that the relative impacts of reform on women are lower than on men. Reduction in their benefits at full maturity is 9% for women, 13% for men. As well, for age, you will see that overall, youth are less affected. Those under 25 years of age will receive 8% less in benefits compared with 11% overall.
Perhaps I could just note here that in fact we have concluded a gender impact analysis on the entire package. We should have that available to bring to committee for you tomorrow.
Table 6.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: According to your hypothesis, the effect on youth and women is the same across Canada. Actually, this is an average that you're defining here.
[English]
Ms Jackson: That's correct. Yes, these are aggregate average figures.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: But it is possible, in fact, that depending on the labour market, there are young people who are more affected than others in certain provinces. This is also true for women - they work more - according to the number of children they have.
You also have that data by province and it will be possible to obtain it.
Mr. Noreau: We have the data, Madam, but at one point, one has to question their validity, because we're starting to break it down into age groups.
With regard to the 10% sample, when it's refined many times, at one point, based on our best professional advice, we are forced to say that the sample is meaningless and that no decision should be based on it.
.1510
Therefore that data exists, but we must question its validity and credibility when the sample is thus reduced.
Ms Lalonde: For the moment, what we understand is that decisions may have been made based on the fact that youth or women would be affected in this way, and there could therefore be consequences involving the various conclusions if it was found in one province or another, that those groups were further affected, again depending on the labour market.
Mr. Noreau: That's right. Before you arrived, I indicated that some impact data were well known and some were not. That's why this monitoring mechanism must be established and a report must be tabled in Parliament in 1998 so that the impact that is not measurable now can be observed as implementation takes place and the actual situation is revealed.
The Chairman: I now give the floor to Mr. Dubé, provided he asks a short question.
Mr. Dubé: Mr. Noreau, you say that at one point, the data stops being statistically valid. Starting at what number of individuals?
Mr. Noreau: At one point, a statistical sampling - I'm not a statistician, but I will bring you that tomorrow - loses its validity because we're down to the level of individuals and not the groups that can be statistically analyzed.
Mr. Dubé: I'm interested in this because I did do statistics. Usually, beyond 1,000, there's no problem.
Mr. Noreau: No, of course not.
[English]
Ms Jackson: In fact, that's what we have done in these tables. We have shown anything involving 1,000 observations or more, with the exception of the province of Prince Edward Island, where, simply because we're starting with such a small sample size, we are showing observations of at least 50, multiplied up, based on our file, to 500. So, yes.
Table 6 provides you with some information about the impact of reform on low-income families with children.
I am reading across the total line. What you see here is the number of claimants: 350,000 claimants are in families with annual incomes of $26,000 or less.
Under Bill C-111, in 1997-98 this group of claimants will receive benefits totalling $1.4 billion, 3% more than without reform, and by the year 2001-02, when reform will have been fully implemented, they will receive benefits of $1.5 billion, an increase of 7%.
The next table, table 7, is actually a subset of the population I just described in table 6. These are claimants in low-income lone-parent families.
Here, of the 350,000 claimants in low-income families, we know that 160,000 are lone parents. Under Bill C-111, these claimants will receive insurance benefits that are 5% higher in 1997-98 and 10% higher in 2001-02.
What the set of these two tables is showing you is, in essence, the impact of the family supplement.
Mr. Noreau: Are you okay on section 1?
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: I have another question about the foot note at the bottom of page 3. It is about the benefit-premium ratio. You say that they are relative because they are based on the hypothesis according to which the unemployment insurance account is perfectly balanced in a given year and that premiums are equal to benefits.
I would like you to explain that further. That would mean that there would be no surplus if I understand correctly.
.1515
[English]
Ms Jackson: No, it means just the opposite. It means we've calculated these ratios for a year when the UI account would perfectly balance out: premiums in would equal pay-outs of unemployment insurance benefits.
[Translation]
Mr. Noreau: In other words, it's as if every year there were either a surplus or a deficit.
For calculation purposes, we've eliminated either the surplus or the deficit. We postulated that the benefit payments had been fully financed. We know that that's not the case every year, but over time,...
[English]
A witness: Over time.
[Translation]
Mr. Noreau: ...it balances out. We took what should balance out over time and we applied it to a given year in order to have a year where everything is in balance.
Ms Lalonde: Couldn't that lead to some distortion?
Mr. Noreau: Over time, that's what will happen. The year will balance out, but we could not have given you an idea of the benefit-premium ratio if there had been a significant imbalance between account expenditures and revenues.
Ms Lalonde: So this just gives us an idea.
Mr. Noreau: It's an idea, but one that is based on a scenario of predictability. This repeats itself year after year.
[English]
Ms Smith: For example, this would be the average benefit-to-contribution ratio over a business cycle for each of these industries.
The Chairman: This is a pretty complex area of analysis. Perhaps if we could carve that out as a subject for discussion it would allow us to carry through with the tables. We're dealing with methodology here, I think.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: Yes, but methodology is somewhat important.
The Chairman: I know, but when we've gone through the tables, I would simply like to get back to some fundamental points that may take more time.
Ms Lalonde: Thank you.
[English]
Ms Jackson: On section 2, we've provided some basic facts that are relevant to the measures proposed in Bill C-111. These are Canadian figures. As we get further into the package you'll find we've provided the same information by province.
Just a couple of things I'd draw to your attention. The second line will tell you that on average men work 39 hours per week, women 30 hours per week; 86% of men and 65% of women work at least 35 hours per week.
A couple other things you'll perhaps find useful to keep in mind, in the section under ``weeks'' now.... We know the average regular claim duration for men is about 25 weeks, and it's the same for women. We know 10% of regular claimants have received more than 45 weeks of UI. The last two lines are also pertinent to the reform. For claimants with over twenty weeks of benefits in five years it's 47% across the country and 4.3% of claimants with over 120 weeks of benefits in five years.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: When you talk about the percentage of workers who have worked less than 35 hours a week, this is obviously according to your sample. However, right now, people do not file claims if they haven't worked 15 hours a week for 12 weeks. Therefore, those who work less do not file claims and are not part of your sample.
.1520
I'm trying to see the effect of that on the calculation of this 910-hour minimum.
[English]
Ms Jackson: This figure of 77% of workers working at least 35 hours per week is a Statistics Canada sample. We're going to go to what we know about UI claimants and their hours of work. But this is not. It's survey data.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: Therefore, those are no longer your files.
Mr. Noreau: Indeed, they're no longer our files.
[English]
Mrs. Brown: The unemployment rate: under labour market indicators for 1995 the total is 9.5%. The UI demographics state that the UI claimants are some 2 million plus and the share of the national labour force represented by UI claimants is 14%. Does this mean the unemployment rate - and I know the years are different, 1994 and 1995 - is different from UI claimants, the definition is different? If so, can you explain to me how or why?
Ms Jackson: Yes, they are two separate things, actually. There will be people in the labour force survey conducted by Statistics Canada who will be interviewed and state that they are unemployed, but they may not necessarily be in receipt of unemployment insurance benefits.
Mrs. Brown: I'm just surprised it's so high, 14% versus 9.5%.
Ms Diane Carroll (Acting Director, Policy Analysis, Department of Human Resources Development): The main difference is that when you look at the labour force, the unemployment rate, it's the number of people who are unemployed at any one time. So in the month of January that's the number of people, 1.5 million people or whatever it is for January. But when you look at the number of claimants for UI, it's the number of people who actually file a claim at any time during the year. You can have somebody who claims from January, February, March, and another person who comes in.... It's the total number of people who actually file a claim at any time during the year. It's higher than the unemployment rate at any one point.
Mrs. Brown: And would not include those people who were no longer seeking work and who no longer qualified for UI itself?
Ms Carroll: The unemployment rate - that's right. You have to be looking for work to be -
Mrs. Brown: It doesn't include those who have just given up.
Ms Carroll: That's correct.
Mrs. Brown: And we don't know those numbers?
Ms Carroll: Statistics Canada estimates that.
Mr. Allmand: I have a short question on that table. At the bottom we have dollars; you have average weekly benefits, 1994 regular claimants, men $303, women $234, total $267. What is the lowest possible weekly benefit under the present law, per week?
Ms Smith: There is no minimum. It could be a dollar.
Mr. Allmand: I'm talking about the people who are working a fifteen-hour week.
Ms Carroll: In order to be an insurable week, it's $163.
Mr. Allmand: That's the lowest possible if you work fifteen hours on a minimum wage.
Ms Carroll: If either you're working at least fifteen hours or you've earned at least $163, one or the other, it's an insurable week. If you were a part-time person working sixteen hours but still earning less than $163 -
Mr. Allmand: I'm talking about the person with minimum wage -
Ms Carroll: You have to have $163 in that week for it to be insurable.
Mr. Allmand: And what would the benefit be?
Ms Smith: About $90.
Mr. Allmand: That's what I want: $90 is the low.
Ms Jackson: The next table is indeed information we have on UI claimants by hours of work. We know approximately 1.9 million claimants, or 77%, work 35 hours or more. I'm drawing your attention to a line so you can read it across the table. We've put in here an Atlantic total line. We know in Atlantic Canada, for instance, 86% of claimants work 35 hours or more a week.
.1525
We also estimate - and we're going to get to this in a future table - that, of the rest of the people who work 34 hours or less, 23% will still be able to qualify for benefits. Even though they're working less than 35 hours each week, they have a sufficient number of weeks of work to meet the minimum number of hours needed to qualify for benefits.
The third table in this section gives you distribution of claimants by weeks of UI benefit history.
As I believe the minister mentioned when he was here last week, under Bill C-111, with the introduction of the form, all claimants will start with a clean slate as of July 1996. So with this table we're trying to give you a sense of benefit history of current UI claimants.
You can see here that the majority of UI claimants have collected 20 or fewer weeks in the past five years. That's 53.4%. As well, you can see that that percentage varies greatly province by province, ranging from 23.5% in Newfoundland to 69% in Ontario.
The Chairman: Could you give us the end-points of the period the five years is encompassing?
Ms Carroll: We will start on July 1, 1996.
The Chairman: No, I mean for the purposes of the table.
Ms Carroll: It is for claimants from 1993, looking back.
The Chairman: So it's from 1993 backwards to about 1988.
Ms Carroll: Yes.
Ms Jackson: The same regional variation is also true at the other extreme. You'll see that 4.3% of UI claimants have collected more than 120 weeks of benefits in the past five years, but that percentage stands at 0.3% in Ontario, 26.9% in Newfoundland, 4.6% in Quebec, and, for instance, 0.6% in Alberta. So there's quite a variation.
When Norine explains the elements of the reform package tomorrow, you'll learn that what is pertinent to having over 120 weeks in benefits is the tougher clawback.
The next table, table 4 -
Mrs. Brown: I have a small question. It's very interesting. Looking at Alberta, zero to 20 weeks is 58.1%, but when you go immediately to 21 to 40 weeks, between 20 and 21 there seems to be a major difference, a point of difference in any event, because it then drops to 15.4%. Can you explain that to me? That's a considerable drop in that range, and it is the same for all of the provinces. I'm quite surprised. As soon as 21 starts, you have quite a drop in terms of the weeks.
Ms Smith: What this table is showing is the distribution for all of the claimants in Alberta, where they show up in terms of their claim patterns. So if you added up all the numbers in that row for Alberta, it would total 100% of claimants. So it's saying that 58% of all the claimants of Alberta have zero to 20 weeks. They could have 1; they could have 19. They're somewhere in that range.
Mrs. Brown: I understand that, but there's no reason for that marked difference. There's nothing within the regulations that would have indicated that.
Ms Smith: No, that's just a reflection of the fact that perhaps a larger proportion of the claimants in Alberta are displaced workers and perhaps fewer of them are seasonal workers than is the case in other provinces.
Mr. Nault (Kenora - Rainy River): Before we get by the distribution of claimants by weeks, one of the issues you brought up at the beginning of your presentation was that 10% have breaks in their employment, so-called gaps. Have you a table for us that shows us where that 10% is in the country? After all, 10% of the overall amount of people who collect UI is a very large number. If they all happen to be Atlantic Canada, that's a huge number and the issue is much larger than you have portrayed it in the presentation, saying 10% overall is not a big number.
.1530
Is there a way for us to deal with it in item 3? Is it there? I can't see it in the distribution of claimants by weeks of UI benefit history. It's not there. I can't read it in that one. Can I read it in any of the others? Can you get that for us?
Ms Jackson: No, you will not find any of that type of information in this data package. But we intended to spend time with you on that tomorrow afternoon and we do have some additional information for you about who those people are, what industries they work in, where they are in the country. We have some information beyond what we've mentioned to you today.
Mr. Noreau: And your point is valid. The average, 10%, was not an attempt by me to understate the problem. In some areas of the country this is -
Mr. Nault: Out of the 10%, if 8% are in Atlantic Canada, that becomes a very large number.
Mr. Noreau: We'll come to that tomorrow.
Mr. Nault: I'd like to know what it is. If it's going to be done tomorrow, great.
Ms Jackson: Yes.
Mr. Nault: Okay.
The Chairman: You may continue.
Ms Jackson: Table 4 provides you with information on current and new claimants under Bill C-111. Here you can see that under Bill C-111 continuing claimants, claimants who will continue to be eligible for UI, total close to 2.4 million and represent 96% of current claimants.
The next column is a column of new claimants. This is telling you that 90,000 individuals who become unemployed today and are not eligible for UI benefits will be eligible for insurance benefits in future. On the right-hand side of this table you can see that 4% of current claimants, or again 90,000, could potentially be ineligible for benefits under Bill C-111.
This distribution of claimants is relatively evenly spread throughout the country, from 2% of claimants in Ontario to 4% in Quebec, in the prairies, in British Columbia, and 5% of claimants in Atlantic Canada.
Who are these people? They're claimants who currently have sufficient weeks of work to qualify but who without a change in their work circumstances are not going to have sufficient hours in future. The vast majority of these people - and we'll get into this with you in more detail - are entrants and re-entrants requiring 910 hours to qualify for benefits in future.
The Chairman: We have a flurry of questions. I'll see Mr. Scott first.
Mr. Scott: Do I understand this will be a sort of theoretical construction? There would be people here who under the existing regime would be entitled. Particularly this would apply to new entrants. If they're new entrants, they're not on right now.
I just want to make the point that this is a theoretical construction, not people who are currently receiving benefits and who somehow are not going to be receiving benefits but rather people who could potentially receive benefits and who won't be able potentially to receive benefits. I think it's very important, because one means you're on right now and you're off with this, and the other means you might have got on - particularly for younger new entrants, you might have got on - but with these rules you won't. It's a very important distinction between people who might be drawing UI and people who are currently on but will no longer be able to get it.
Ms Carroll: The new claimants, the 90,000 who would come in and qualify under EI, are people who become unemployed today but have insufficient insured weeks to qualify. They are people who lose their job today and cannot qualify for UI, but they would qualify for EI benefits because they would have sufficient hours.
.1535
So it's two types of individuals. It's the person who works less than 15 hours a week and has420 hours but has no insurable weeks today, as well as the individual who may work for 50 hours a week, but for only 10 weeks, and therefore doesn't have the 12 weeks of insured employment but has 500 hours of work.
Mr. Scott: I understand. It's important to clarify that it is people who could and won't be able to, rather than people who are and are going to lose their benefits because of this. That's an important difference.
Ms Jackson: Yes.
Mr. Scott: It's not 5,000 people who are currently drawing unemployment insurance who, as a result of this, will stop drawing it. It's 5,000 people who might have been able to draw but won't.
Ms Smith: The new claimants are people who are not able to qualify today but will be able to qualify under Bill C-111.
Mr. Scott: I understand that.
Ms Smith: The claimants potentially non-qualifying are claimants who are qualifying today but who will not be able to under Bill C-111.
Mr. Noreau: The latter category are the ones who are lucky with the existing definition of a 15-hour week. They work 16, for example -
Mr. Scott: I understand.
Mr. Noreau: So those will be knocked off if their work patterns don't change.
Mr. Allmand: With respect to the editorial comment following the table in which it tries to justify the fact that these 90,000 individuals will not qualify, the last paragraph in this comment says:
- Analysis of past UI reforms indicate that when faced with higher entrance requirements over
70% of the individuals affected find the additional work.
The other one is in the preceding paragraph. It says that these kind of people, especially young people, ``are drawn into temporary, unstable jobs before completing their education due to the...ease with which they can access UI''. My experience is that these young people have to take those jobs because there are no other jobs to take. I'd like to see also the study that indicates that these young people take those jobs because it's easy to get UI.
Anyway, I find this comment at the end to be a bit troubling.
Mr. Noreau: Tomorrow we could certainly give you the results of that evaluation that leads to this -
Mr. Allmand: I'd like to see that.
Ms Jackson: It has been tabled with the committee.
Mr. Noreau: We can comment on it. It is with you, but we could take you to the right pages and show you where that 72% is from.
The Chairman: So tomorrow you will provide information on the breakdown of that 72%?
Mr. Noreau: Yes.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: My question concerns page 4. How can you say that people who are not insurable right now because they work less than 15 hours or earn less than $163 a week would become insurable when the minimum to qualify is 910 hours? They will pay premiums, but how can you say that they will qualify? I don't understand.
Mr. Noreau: The 910 hours apply to new entrants and to those returning after an absence of at least two years.
Ms Lalonde: That's right, they would be new claimants. Therefore, in order to qualify, the first time they must accumulate 910 hours over a period of 52 weeks. When you earn $163 or less per week, how can you qualify for unemployment insurance? According to our calculations, you have to have worked at minimum wage at least 18 hours a week for 52 weeks to obtain 910 hours.
.1540
How can you maintain that people who are not currently insurable because they earn less than $163 or work fewer than 15 hours could qualify? It seems mathematically impossible to me. It's true for the others too. They will not be able to qualify, but they will continue to pay premiums.
[English]
The Chairman: Is there a straightforward answer to that question?
Mr. Noreau: My initial answer would be that we will verify that and be back to you, but
[Translation]
the 90,000 who are referred to here and who would become eligible are not only new entrants.
Ms Jackson: No.
Mr. Noreau: You're focussing on the category...
Ms Lalonde: According to our understanding, new entrants could not qualify, but would pay premiums. Therefore, there will clearly be two categories: those who are already in the labour force and those who have previously had access to unemployment insurance, correct?
[English]
Ms Jackson: We'll have a table later that I think will explain on your question about part-time workers and their paying premiums. But that 90,000 who we would expect to be new claimants in the future split about 50-50 between part-time workers who will be able to work enough hours to be able to qualify and seasonal workers who have high hours but not enough weeks under the current system.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: In any event, they're nowhere near 910 hours.
Mr. Noreau: But if you apply the 910-hour standard to...
Ms Lalonde: Forty-two times 10 is 420, not 910.
Mr. Noreau: Your argument is valid, Madam.
Ms Lalonde: Thank you.
Mr. Noreau: But there are very few such people in the 90,000 we're referring to. My colleague has just told you that they are either seasonal workers, or part-time workers who have unfortunately not worked a sufficient number of weeks or not accumulated enough hours. The new system will make them eligible.
With regard to new entrants and the 910-hour requirement - you haven't said so, but I can sense that you feel that's too high - that's another problem that we can get back to later.
Ms Lalonde: Well... I still think that the least we can say is that your figures reflect a rather rosy view of life.
The Chairman: I would like us to stick to points of clarification. We will go on to evaluations later.
[English]
Ms Smith: I might say that in my presentation tomorrow I'll have quite a number of examples to help explain how the various entrance rules work. Hopefully, that will clarify some of this.
Turning to table 5, under Bill C-111 about 500,000 part-time workers will have their work insured for the first time. These are the individuals who currently work less than 15 hours per week. Of this group of 500,000, we know that 380,000 will have their premiums refunded because they earn less than $2,000 a year. So that actually leaves us with 120,000 new contributors to the UI program. We estimate that 80,000 to 100,000 of those 500,000 will actually become unemployed and require insurance benefits.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: You're saying that you estimate that between 80,000 and 100,000 of these 500,000 workers will actually become unemployed and can therefore claim benefits. Can you explain that?
.1545
[English]
Ms Carroll: The 500,000 people who are covered are the people who are in the labour force and who will have their work insured, but we estimate that about 16% to 20% of them - that would be the unemployment rate within that group - are the number of people who actually lose their job and are looking for other work. That's the client population who would be looking for unemployment insurance benefits or looking for that type of assistance.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: Therefore, that doesn't mean that they would be insurable or that they would automatically qualify. Rather, they would seek to qualify.
[English]
Ms Carroll: No, it means all their work is insured, and if that group, the 100,000, become unemployed and have the sufficient number of hours, then they will qualify for benefits. The estimate we have of the number of these people who actually qualify for benefits is about 45,000.
Mrs. Lalonde: But they would qualify.
Ms Carroll: Yes, they would have a sufficient number of hours.
[Translation]
Mr. Noreau: It's important to note that in order for them to have access to benefits, their work must be insured, they must meet the criteria for the number of hours and they have to have earned money. They have three doors to go through. This says that they have gone through the first door. It doesn't mean that they're eligible.
Ms Lalonde: That's right. We are sure that they're not.
Mr. Noreau: I agree with you. The important thing is that we understand each other, that's all.
[English]
Ms Jackson: The next table is on part-time workers and their premium payments. This explains premium contributions by part-time workers. But first, the top half of the table focuses on current part-time workers who pay premiums now. We estimate 330,000 of them will receive a refund because they're earning less than $2,000 a year. The next 1.6 million we estimate will pay less in premiums in future because of the fall in the premium rate from $3.00 to $2.95. So overall, current part-time workers will pay $20 million less in premiums.
The bottom half of the table focuses on the newly insured part-time workers. Again you see the figure of 380,000 of the 500,000; the 380,000 we would anticipate will receive a complete refund of their premiums because they're making less than $2,000 a year. That leaves 120,000 new premium payers among part-time workers, paying in total $14 million in premiums.
If you take the reduction of $20 million and you subtract from it the additional premium revenue of $14 million, as a group part-time workers will pay $6 million less in premiums in future:$579 million compared with $585 million today.
Mr. Nault: Is there a definition of what a part-time worker is? For example, is a student who works sixty hours a week for two or three months before going back to university classified as a part-time worker?
Ms Jackson: No.
Mr. Nault: So what's a part-time worker? Is it someone who works less than 35 hours?
Ms Carroll: Someone who works less than 30 hours.
Mr. Nault: Less than 30 hours a week?
Ms Carroll: That's right.
Mr. Nault: So this doesn't include the category of students?
Ms Carroll: If the student is working part-time it would include the student.
Mr. Nault: Do you have a number for how many students are in the 500,000?
Ms Carroll: Earn $500,000?
Mr. Nault: No, there are 500,000 people in the category of part-time people.
Ms Carroll: We don't, no.
Mr. Nault: You don't know who the students are in that particular category?
Ms Carroll: We can probably get an estimate.
Mr. Noreau: I've seen that number. We'll get it for you.
Mr. Nault: How does a student fit into the category of the hourly process? Correct me if I'm wrong on this. It's been a long time since I've been a student, but if you worked all summer long, under this system you will now have to pay premiums, whereas before, in the old system, the employer and the employee had a choice if that particular person was a student.
Ms Carroll: Only if the person was working less than 15 hours a week or earning less than $163 that week were no premiums paid. The student wasn't treated any differently if they were working for 15 hours or earning $163 or more.
.1550
Mr. Nault: What I'm getting at is this. Let's say that a student works all summer long - and some of them work very long hours. How can they get around the process of having to have the longer qualifying period for the first time they become a UI recipient? If I, as a student, work all summer long, I can't collect UI because I'm going back to university, so I don't qualify because I'm not looking for work. But then in fact I've paid premiums all summer long. How do you deal with that particular individual?
Part of the argument is that people are being forced to work longer hours when they've already qualified for UI many times over in the summertime at a smaller number of hours.
Ms Smith: Maybe I could try my hand at that one.
The first point is that the work attachment - that is, the criterion that is used for determining whether or not somebody is an entrant or a re-entrant into the labour force - is not directly related to their premium payments or their ability to qualify for UI in a previous year. We look simply at how much work an individual has.
In the particular example you're describing, that of a student who has worked during the summer and may have put in a considerable number of hours on the job during that summer, they might not qualify for benefits that fall because they're going back to school and they are not available for work. But when they came out of school the following spring and went back to work the following summer - they've graduated from school and they're now in the labour market on an ongoing basis - if that student had 490 hours in the previous year, they would be subject to the normal entrance requirements of all other workers in the coming year. So they would face the 420- to 700-hour entrance requirement, rather than the 910.
In the presentation I'll be giving tomorrow I'll have a table that lays that out. It will help to show how in essence there are really two ways of getting into UI. There's a one-year way, which is910 hours if you don't have much labour market history, or there's a two-year way, which is 490 hours in one year and the regular entrance requirements in the second year.
Mr. Nault: I asked because I think there's a perception that many students will now qualify whereas they didn't before, based on the fact that often they work 16-hour days. In my region, when they go tree planting they are working 16-hour days, or some form of piece work, or as a guide in a tourist camp. They'll work long hours and get paid the minimum wage. Of course, if they work for three or four months like that, all of a sudden they'll qualify, whereas they wouldn't before. I am interested in the numbers on that, because in tourism, which is especially a seasonal industry, you work very long hours. I was looking for some statistics on that particular profession for part-time workers. I classify them as part-timers because they are seasonal. I suppose there's a difference.
Maybe I could get that information somewhere down the line. This afternoon I don't want to bog things down any more than they already are bogged down.
The Chairman: Thanks. I presume that will be covered tomorrow morning.
Continue.
Ms Jackson: Table 7 shows you individuals receiving the premium refund.
The Chairman: Could I stop you one more time, for a small question?
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: I would like a minor clarification. The sum of $2,000 is reimbursed only when an income tax return is filed. Does that mean that the Department of Revenue keeps that money during that period?
[English]
Ms Smith: No. It's returned to the UI account, if that's your question.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: No. My question is about the fact that you keep the money. In other words, this will reduce the need to borrow for a certain period because there is money that will have to be refunded later. We'd have to make some calculations to see how much that represents.
[English]
Ms Jackson: Table 7, individuals receiving premium refunds by province, age, and gender: here the total column shows you that 1.3 million workers who earn less than $2,000 a year will have their premiums refunded. Of this group, 122,000 of them live in Atlantic Canada, 323,000 in Quebec, 471,000 in Ontario. We've also shown that 600,000 of them are men, 700,000 are women. We have a breakdown by age. Of those less than nineteen years of age, 386,000 will receive the premium refund.
.1555
In the next table, table 8, we have some further information on claimants who are eligible for the family supplement, by province. As I said before, we know 350,000 claimants in low-income families will be eligible for the family supplement. Here we've shown you that distribution by province, as well as those people as a percentage of all provincial claimants. That's the last column you have.
Mr. Noreau: Okay, section 3.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: Table 8 describes what will happen when the new legislation is applied, correct?
Mr. Noreau: Yes, because the family income supplement does not exist under the current law.
Ms Lalonde: And yet in the current legislation, there is a form of family income supplement that applies to people who get unemployment insurance benefits. In a family, the person concerned is the one who receives unemployment insurance benefits. I would like to have an evaluation of the difference. In our opinion, this difference is relatively significant. If the wife is unemployed and her husband has a high income, she will not be entitled to the full supplement.
Mr. Noreau: Correct.
Ms Lalonde: That's not the case right now.
The Chairman: Could we see where the figures come from?
[English]
Ms Jackson: Sure.
[Translation]
Mr. Noreau: We have noted the request. Depending on the complexity of the question, we will be able to tell you tomorrow whether we can provide the data immediately or at another time. We will have answers to many of your questions tomorrow, because some of the data is available.
The Chairman: All right. In any event, the question has been noted.
[English]
Ms Brown, you had a question.
Mrs. Brown: Again, just looking at this table and making some assumptions about the numbers, given what I know about, for example, Alberta.... When you're looking at the Atlantic provinces, where you have total Atlantic provinces, 319,000 claimants under this family supplement, and the total on the prairies 329,000, I'm rather struck by the number of 181,000 in Alberta. The business cycle in Alberta is one that in my view is relatively healthy. Perhaps it's just by virtue of the population differential, I'm not sure, but it would seem to me there's a vibrancy in the economy that's not reflected in these numbers, and I'm curious why.
Ms Jackson: The first thing is that these are simply total numbers of claimants. We're saying nothing here about duration of benefits, for instance. That will vary, as I explained when I took you through the Canadian statistics.
Mrs. Brown: Yes, and I understand that, but I guess that's why I have some difficulty when you're looking at impacts on a purely number basis.
It comes back to your earlier comment, Mr. Noreau, about how there's no way of quantifying habits or behaviours. As you were making those statements, I made some notes here about the cyclical nature of business and the economy. None of that is going to be reflected in anything that's just numbers based. I appreciate the numbers, but in terms of validity in reflecting what is actually happening...because that's also going to affect your evaluation and assessment down the road, when you're looking to see how people actually are going to be adjusting to these changes.
.1600
So there is a non-quantitative element here that I don't think should be dismissed, whether or not you deal with it through some kind of anecdotal evidence that's collected over time, as well as pure numbers, because we're talking about people here. We're talking about economies and business cycles, which are not reflected in any of these numbers.
Mr. Noreau: You're making my point much better than I did. It is true that some phenomena are not captured by this booklet. There is no booklet that can capture them. This is why we will have to continue to monitor and observe the behaviours or the other elements that will be impacted on by these changes that are not at all reflected in this book.
Mrs. Brown: That would be a substantial and significant caveat to your paper, and one that you should note perhaps even within the documents themselves.
Ms Jackson: I think we did make an effort to do that in the preface, which I skipped over because the deputy had underscored those points before that.
Section 3 is the detailed data by province. As I suggested earlier, we thought we could look at perhaps two provinces, and then if you have other questions about others we can try to deal with it in that way.
May I suggest that we turn to page 5, which provides information on Nova Scotia. This first page gives you those same basic facts in statistics that are relevant to some of the elements of reform for Nova Scotia. So you can see under the labour market indicators that 75% of workers in Nova Scotia work at least 35 hours per week. Broken down, that's 85% of men and 62% of women.
Going down the page a little bit further, we know that UI claimants in Nova Scotia have on average 30 weeks of insured work prior to establishing an unemployment insurance claim, and we know that the average duration of a UI claim in Nova Scotia is about 28 weeks. There too there's very little variation between men and women.
Continuing down, I'm drawing your attention to the bottom three points. We know that 9% of claimants in Nova Scotia receive more than 45 weeks of benefits, that 62% of claimants in Nova Scotia have had over 20 weeks of benefits in a five-year period - that is, counting back from 1993, as we noted earlier - and that 9.1% of claimants have had over 120 weeks of benefits in that five-year period.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: With regard to the demographics of unemployment insurance, I would like to make sure that when you're talking about part of the labour force a province, you mean that part of the labour force that has filed for unemployment insurance in a given year. Am I correct in assuming it is the population that has filed for unemployment insurance during a given year?
Mr. Noreau: No. It's the labour force.
Ms Lalonde: The 24%, that's correct?
Mr. Noreau: That's the definition of the labour force, that is people who are part of the work force, people who...
Ms Lalonde: Of course not. Surely the labour force of Nova Scotia is more than 24%.
Mr. Noreau: That means that the 103,000 UI recipients represent 24%...
Ms Lalonde: Twenty-four percent of the labour force.
Mr. Noreau: ...of the labour force of the province.
Ms Lalonde: That is for that year, but it is probable that...
Mr. Noreau: It's for that year. It's the definition that Diane gave you earlier, that is people who file for benefits during the year. Twenty-four percent of the labour force of Nova Scotia did so during that year.
[English]
The Chairman: I have a question of my own.
.1605
I take you to the average weekly benefit for 1994. For Nova Scotia, it's $244 a week for both genders. Is it possible to obtain a distribution of the weekly benefit in terms of the level of weekly benefits, that is to say the percentage of claimants who are receiving the maximum weekly benefits under the current program, and then break it down by the percentage of claimants who receive various levels of weekly benefits to comprise that average?
Mr. Noreau: Okay. We can break that down.
Ms Jackson: The next table shows you the numbers of insurance claimants in Nova Scotia who will be affected by Bill C-111, both positively and potentially negatively.
I'm reading down the first column. You see that 99,000 people in Nova Scotia will qualify for employment insurance income benefits. When we compare this to the size of the current claimant population, this represents 98%. This 99,000 includes 97,000 people who qualify today and who will continue to be able to qualify for benefits, as well as 2,000 people who cannot qualify today but will in future with Bill C-111.
The first column also shows you that if work circumstances do not change for 4,000 people in Nova Scotia, then they could potentially not be able to qualify under Bill C-111. That is 3.9% of current claimants.
Mr. Scott: This might be where I can straighten out my last question. It demonstrates it quite clearly, I think.
Underneath that table, it says that 4,000 current claimants will no longer qualify, unless they get additional hours. In the next line it says that the vast majority of these individuals may be new entrants or re-entrants. I bring to your attention that if you're saying that they're current claimants, then they wouldn't be new entrants. That's exactly my point: these are people who could get in now and wouldn't be able to get in under the new rules, but they're not people who are currently drawing unemployment insurance benefits. My point is that they would be new entrants.
Ms Smith: Let me try to clarify that. This is saying that in the year that we did the analysis there were a group of people who qualified for UI benefits as new entrants or re-entrants. Of that group of people who qualified as new entrants or re-entrants in 1993, nationally 88,000 of them won't qualify in the future. So they are current claimants who qualified under that particular provision of the current act.
Mr. Scott: I understand. I'm just trying to make it very clear, because they are a group of people who would have entered unemployment insurance in a particular year because of the way the rules were but won't enter unnemployment insurance under the new rules in a particular year. However, there are people who think, right now, that this means that there'll be 5,000 people who are current claimants, people who are drawing unemployment insurance right now, who won't be as a result. These people who are drawing right now are not what we're talking about; we're talking about a stream in that who won't continue because they are new entrants.
It's very important to people who are sitting and watching us who are drawing unemployment, who are going to draw the conclusion that they are no longer going to be able to draw. That's my point.
Ms Smith: Because being a new entrant is a one-shot deal.
Mr. Scott: Exactly. They are not on it, because they're new entrants.
Ms Smith: Once you've passed the hurdle, you're not a new entrant any longer. That's correct.
Mr. Scott: It's very important.
Ms Jackson: They're future new entrants.
Mr. Scott: Yes. They're not people who are watching us on TV and wondering if they're one of the 5,000. It's very important.
.1610
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: I have another question. Help me understand the content of the table. You're saying that the benefits of 98,000 people who remain eligible will be reduced by 6% in 1997-98 and 9% in 2001-2. You're also saying that these people will continue to receive benefits and that those who receive $2,000 will be eligible for the first time. If I understand correctly, with regard to that last group, you're saying that they would be eligible for the first time before the reform.
[English]
Ms Jackson: No, that's with reform. Because of the reform, these people will be able to qualify for benefits.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: That means they could work 15 hours or less or work 42 hours over 10 weeks, according to the two examples you've used. Therefore, they will pay premiums if they earn more than $2,000, but it is not certain whether they can qualify. "Eligible" and "qualify" are not the same thing. Fine. It's important to say so clearly, Mr. Scott.
[English]
Ms Jackson: But -
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: It seems to me there's an evaluation missing here. Perhaps you can't do it. Could you explain what the effect is of the new 910-hour rule and the requirement for those who must reenter the job market. I haven't seen that anywhere. You specify that people are eligible, which leads us to understand that they could qualify, and yet, in fact, the 910-hour requirement can be so high that it does not allow a large number of "eligible" people to qualify. We can't see this effect anywhere, in my opinion.
Mr. Noreau: We explained earlier that this 910-hour minimum could be obtained in one year or two.
Ms Lalonde: Depending...
Mr. Noreau: Depending. If someone accumulates up to 490 hours of work in a single year, the following year, that person is no longer considered a new entrant. He or she becomes an eligible worker just like the others. Therefore, the 910-hour rule only applies to those who want to become eligible during the first year.
You want to know what effect this produces in terms of what exactly?
Ms Lalonde: There's a kind of bias here. You're saying that there are more eligible people. According to our interpretation the 910-hour rule is so rigorous that very few so-called eligible people will in fact be able to qualify.
This can vary according to the labour market, depending on whether one is in Montreal or Toronto.
Mr. Noreau: I agree, and once again I agree with you, that the first requirement is to have insurable work, according to the rule of 15 hours or an insurable minimum. The second requirement is to accumulate a sufficient number of hours. In the vast majority of cases, the minimum number of hours that would have to be worked is between 420 and 710. The 910-hour rule targets a special category of individuals, the new entrants.
Ms Lalonde: That's clear.
Mr. Noreau: I would also like to specify that for these new entrants, over a period of two years, that 910-hour figure is divided in two. To be eligible the first time, you need 490 hours. Then you are on the same footing as any other worker; this means that you must work between 420 and 710 hours, and not 910 hours.
Ms Lalonde: However, to have access, you have to have worked those hours.
Mr. Noreau: That's right. You have to have worked them.
Ms Lalonde: If you become unemployed after 430 hours, you do not have access to unemployment insurance.
Mr. Dubé: You have to wait a year.
Mr. Noreau: That's only if you're a new entrant.
Ms Lalonde: That's correct. Thank you.
The Chairman: You have to fulfil those requirements. That's what Ms Lalonde is saying.
Mr. Noreau: Meaning?
The Chairman: Meaning that if you are a new entrant and you do not meet the requirements, you cannot qualify and you will still be a new entrant the next time.
.1615
[English]
A witness: That's correct.
[Translation]
Mr. Noreau: If you work every year, for example...
The Chairman: That's right.
Mr. Noreau: If, every year, you work 200 hours and you are a new entrant, you will not become eligible.
The Chairman: That's right, and the barrier remains the same.
Mr. Noreau: The barrier changes when during a given year, you reach 490 hours. At that time, you are no longer a new entrant; you are on the same footing as everyone else. You are a regular recipient.
[English]
Ms Jackson: Just before we leave that, I have a point of qualification. This last $2,000 figure, though, is not just people who are having their work insured for the first time. These are people we would expect are going to qualify for benefits - new people able to qualify for benefits.
Mr. Noreau: Because they have enough hours and they have enough earnings. Right?
Ms Jackson: Yes, enough hours.
[Translation]
Mr. Dubé: At $2,000 a year, unless you earn two or three dollars an hour...
Mr. Noreau: But I can't see where this $2,000...
Mr. Dubé: You said that people who earned less than $2,000 could qualify. But how can they possibly qualify?
Ms Lalonde: It's mathematically impossible.
Mr. Dubé: Unless they work for three dollars an hour...
[English]
Ms Jackson: No, I'm saying in Nova Scotia we expect 2,000 people who cannot qualify for benefits under the current system will be able to qualify under the new system. That's what this figure is. It's not just people who are going to have their work insured. It's actually people who are going to qualify for benefits.
The Chairman: We'll come back to this in some detail tomorrow.
I'm going to Mr. Scott, who has one final point related to this. That will allow us, I hope, to move on.
Mr. Scott: You said if you work 490 hours in a given year, even though you may not qualify, you cease to be a new entrant. If you work less than 490 hours in a given year, even though you do qualify, do you become a new entrant?
Ms Jackson: No.
Mr. Scott: That's very important.
So if someone gets 420 hours, the fact that they got less than 490 hours is not going to mean, according to subclause 7.(4), I think, they would become a new entrant.
Ms Jackson: No.
The Chairman: Continue.
Ms Jackson: I had intended to look at one other province just to make sure we understood, but if that's not necessary we'll move into the next set of tables, the impacts by industry. I'm at section 4 now.
Here we have impacts by industry, by region. ``Region'' here is defined as Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia. This is again a point where we get to that issue of stretching our model and stretching our data as far as we can. Sample sizes are really too small for us to break down industry impacts by individual provinces in all cases and be sure our data are reliable. That's why we have an Atlantic region and a prairie region.
Here I was going to suggest we look at page 2, which gives you impact by industry for the province of Quebec. What you see here is variations in impact on industries. For example, in 1997-98 - and I would take the agriculture sector - we would expect benefits to workers in that sector to fall by $12 million, or 13%, and by the point of full maturity in the year 2001-02, benefits to workers in that sector to be $16 million less, or 16%.
.1620
The Chairman: I have an elementary question. Are we talking about the 16% as a dollar impact from the beginning or a further $16 million from 1997 to 1998?
Mr. Noreau: No.
Ms Smith: Neither.
The Chairman: It's the former interpretation.
Ms Smith: Yes.
The Chairman: And that's consistent with the way in which you've interpreted this in other parts of the document?
Ms Smith: Yes.
Ms Jackson: Another example is the communications sector, which is about midway down the table, where you can see that the benefits to workers in that sector will fall by $3 million, or 5%, in 1997-98. You'll see a $5 million, or 7%, reduction in total benefits paid to that sector by the year 2001-02.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: Excuse me. This is a very basic question. These figures correspond to cuts by industry, correct?
Mr. Noreau: Reductions...
Ms Lalonde: Reductions in benefits. That's what we call the effects.
Mr. Dubé: We can conclude that everyone ends up losing.
Mr. Noreau: Benefits will be reduced in those industries.
[English]
Ms Jackson: Yes, to workers in those industries.
[Translation]
Mr. Dubé: I have a brief question. We have nothing about fisheries in what Mr. Scott said. They are divided into two categories. You talked about this and I would like to ensure that we can find them somewhere.
Mr. Noreau: Fishermen who are self-employed, who are not paid employees, are dealt with in another part of the legislation. We will get back to that. Those are the regulations that govern commercial fishing and the self-employed.
Mr. Dubé: What about industrial fishermen or those who work in processing?
Mr. Noreau: Those are the ones that come under the manufacturing section.
Mr. Dubé: And what about a fisherman who works on a boat but is an employee and not the owner?
[English]
Ms Carroll: The fish processing is in manufacturing. The fishermen are not included at all in the table, because we're still working on that impact and we'll be tabling the regulations regarding fishing benefits. So the final analysis hasn't been done on fishing benefits for the self-employed fishermen.
The Chairman: We're talking about helpers, not those who are self-employed fishermen but those who work for self-employed fishermen.
Ms Carroll: I think all the fish processing and people who are not self-employed fishermen were included together under manufacturing. Everything except self-employed fishermen, who are not here at all, is included in the manufacturing.
Mr. Noreau: We'll confirm that tomorrow.
[Translation]
Mr. Dubé: When will we obtain this information regarding fisheries?
Mr. Noreau: Within two weeks.
[English]
Mrs. Brown: This is an anomaly. When looking at your unclassified and referencing the bill, I was quite astounded when I read about those who would have an extension of the benefit period, as well as of the qualifying period, attached to them if they were in jail. Why would you do that for people who are in jail? You would be looking at giving them some extension of their benefit period, as well as an extension of their qualifying period.
I ask you this because I don't know what percentage of individuals they would represent in the total population. I would expect or assume that they might be captured under the unclassified.
I'm going to be asking this question, so I'm giving you some notice. I think that has no place in employment insurance. I'm sorry; there's zero tolerance out there and you have zero tolerance right here.
If that has any percentage of people or individuals involved and they're in this table, then I would like to know why and if there's any possibility of getting them out of there.
Mr. Noreau: I appreciate your advance notice.
I'll just flag that it's my understanding that Bill C-111 does not change this policy. It's an extension of the old one. But we'll come back to you with -
Mrs. Brown: [Inaudible - Editor]...in terms of these impacts by industry, because in this country jail is an industry.
.1625
Ms Jackson: Briefly turning to the next table, we have impact by industry for the province of Ontario. You can see here that in the year 1997-98 the reductions in income benefits by industrial sector vary from 5% to 11%, and by the year 2001-02 from 5% to 18%. Two examples: for the accommodation, food, and beverage services industry, benefits paid to workers in that sector will be $11 million less in 1997-98, or 6%, and $10 million less in 2001-02, or 5% -
The Chairman: Does that mean the benefits will increase between 1997 or 1998...? How do we interpret the 11% impact in 1997 and then the 10% in 2001-02, if it's cumulative?
Ms Jackson: I think it's expected growth in the sector.
Ms Carroll: It's the projection of the pay-outs. So the base changes from 1997-98 to the year 2001-02. It's showing the growth in benefits as well.
The Chairman: I see. So basically the percentage will be a smaller percentage because the industry has grown.
Ms Carroll: A percentage, right.
The Chairman: So the total impact in dollar terms will be added to that in 1997-98, except that the industry will have grown so the percentage will fall. Is that the way to interpret that?
Ms Carroll: Yes.
The Chairman: Okay. I just want to make sure I understand how this works.
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: But shouldn't there also be the effect of the five years where workers who use unemployment insurance repeatedly will see their total benefits reduced? Does the five-year effect also have to be taken into account?
Mr. Noreau: The impact of that measure is incorporated in this data.
Ms Lalonde: How many workers are covered by your forecasts?
Mr. Noreau: We can find that figure, Madam.
[English]
The Chairman: Carry on.
Ms Jackson: That pretty well draws it to a conclusion. I had intended to stop there. When Norine does her presentation on insurance benefits tomorrow she is going to cover the account and the issue of the reserve.
The Chairman: So the remainder will be covered in future presentations.
Ms Jackson: Wednesday and Thursday, yes.
Mr. Noreau: Section 5 will be covered tomorrow. Sections 6, 7, and 8 will be touched upon especially Thursday, when you get to employment benefits, and Mr. Green will be here.
The Chairman: Okay. I would like to suggest if there are no questions of interpretation or fact at this time we might want just to study this information and come back to it in the context of the other parts of the presentation. That would give us all an opportunity to study the numbers. As I understand it, if we have additional requests for information, they can be made during the course of the week, and possibly later, so we can have a better understanding of this legislation.
Mr. Noreau: I suggest we compare our notes with the clerk and try to sort out the data we can provide tomorrow because it's readily available and the ones that could take a bit more time, so you know when it is that you will be able to respond to your demands and that is a predictable universe for you.
The Chairman: We'll make sure this is coordinated through the staff at the table so we know what we can expect and when we can expect it.
Mr. Noreau: That's right.
.1630
[Translation]
Ms Lalonde: I would like to make sure that you've noted the fact that we would like a breakdown by province, for women, for young people and, if possible, for seasonal workers. We would also like to have the effect of the 10% reduction over five years for repeat users.
Mr. Dubé: One percent per year, therefore 5%.
Ms Lalonde: Five percent over...
Mr. Noreau: It's only half.
Ms. Lalonde: Could we have a breakdown of the assessment of cuts by category? You must have that.
Mr. Noreau: We have noted your request. However, I would repeat my caution. The more specific your question and the smaller your target population, the more we will have to tell you that the data is not really valid or is not worth taking into consideration, or that its impact may not be worth analyzing. Even so, we will try.
Mr. Dubé: Perhaps you could group together certain smaller provinces, such as Prince Edward Island...
Mr. Noreau: Yes, but if you're specific on the one hand and broad on the other... If, for example, you want to know the impact of this on the category of young women with one child, etc., which is a very specific request, and you broaden your question with regard to the region, the data become more general.
Mr. Dubé: I invite you to use the example of the federal bill currently before the Senate which refers to five regions. At least then we'd have something interesting.
Mr. Noreau: I thought you were making another request in addition to the ones I've already received.
[English]
Mr. Scott: A very quick question. I would like to see - if it's possible by province, because you've done some provincial stuff already - the income of claimants, so that where the impact on income.... If the province is too small to draw the sample, you could just put it together regionally, as you already have done with industries. There would be fewer income categories than you have industry categories, so presumably you'd be able to produce those numbers.
Mr. Noreau: We will try, Mr. Scott, but I have to add another little operational caveat here. Some of these data on the provinces, especially the ones on income that deal in part with social assistance recipients and that part of the universe...we still have to vet and check those data with the provinces, because that information is not ours but theirs, when you talk about social assistance in particular. We're in the process of doing this verification with the provinces, and I would like to do that before I share that with you, again because of validity questions. We're not sure of our data, because some of that information is detained in the provincial databases.
Mr. Mifflin: I'd like to go back to the point raised by my colleague Mr. Allmand and the study which shows that 72% of people who have to find work in fact do find it. I understand that study will be presented or will be made available to members, but could you just tell me who did the study? Was it self-generated? Was it done by an outside agency?
Mr. Noreau: It's one of the twenty studies you were provided with. What I suggest is tomorrow we take you to the exact pages that support that number and that analysis. I don't have the authors of the study in my head right now, but.... David Green and Craig Riddell. The title of the study is Qualifying for Unemployment Insurance: An Empirical Analysis of Canada.
The study found a majority, 72%, of workers who had worked between 10 and 13 weeks in 1989 were able to find the additional weeks of work required to receive UI benefits the next year. Workers tended to move out of seasonal industries and into more stable industries.
We'll give you more tomorrow.
Mr. Mifflin: I'd like to make a comment on Mr. Noreau's opening comments. I understand where he was coming from, and I don't mean to take this out of context, but somewhere in the opening statement he said it was strange that when those people who were in seasonal work reached the qualifying time they mysteriously stopped work. My experience in Newfoundland is quite the opposite. The people I'm in contact with struggle to find those extra weeks. Whether this is related to the 75%, which is related to effort and whether the jobs are there or not, depends on where you are coming from and how you look at.
I just wanted to relate my experience that this is not the case, simply because the jobs are not there in certain regions of the country.
Mr. Noreau: Just to clarify, I didn't mean to generalize beyond the numbers. What I said was that 50% to 60% are more likely to leave their jobs once they have worked long enough. So there is room for your example -
Mr. Mifflin: If you were not including the 40% in Atlantic Canada.
The Chairman: On that note, we will thank our witnesses and take our material home with us to study. We'll be back tomorrow morning at 9:30 to continue our examination of this legislation with officials of the Department of Human Resources Development.
Before the members leave, I have a request to go in camera for a very short period on future business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]