[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, March 28, 1996

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[English]

The Chairman: Order.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Mr. Peter Woolford, the senior vice-president of policy from the Retail Council of Canada.

I'm sure appearing in front of a parliamentary standing committee is nothing new to you. As you know, you have approximately a half hour. In that time you have to tell us everything you know about Bill C-12 and how to improve it, and then we'll get on to the question and answer session, which, by the way, is the part of the hearings the members of Parliament will use to focus on some of the key points you will raise during your presentation.

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Once again, welcome, and thank you.

Mr. Peter Woolford (Senior Vice-President, Policy, Retail Council of Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I can easily keep it to less than half an hour and tell you everything I know about unemployment insurance.

It's a pleasure to be here and have the opportunity to present the views of our members to the committee. First, I had hoped that I could bring a real person along with me, one of my members. Unfortunately, with the short notice we had to put this presentation together, I wasn't able to get someone to come here today, but I know it's not for lack of interest in the issue.

That being said, I should also note that the staff of Mr. Fortin were very helpful to me in terms of giving me a time that meshed in with your schedule and mine. So I'm very grateful for the help they gave us.

[Translation]

I am also sorry the presentation is not available in French. We didn't have enough time to translate it, but I will try to answer your questions in French if need be.

[English]

I hope that will help you.

As an association, we represent some 7,000 members in every sector of retailing right across Canada. Those members, both large and small, account for about two-thirds, or maybe a little more than two-thirds, of all retail sales.

I should stress that the image of the Retail Council is sometimes of an organization of large companies. In fact, 90% of our members are independent merchants, who own their own store or a couple of stores. So we're very much a small-business organization as well.

Affiliated with us is the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, which represents all of the major grocery distribution chains in Canada. They also have supported our submission today.

Just a couple of comments to situate the unemployment insurance program with respect to the retail trade. It is an important issue for us. Payroll taxes such as UI, Canada Pension Plan, workers' compensation and so on are very important to retail because of the employment intensity of our activities. Employment costs are a very important variable cost of the business, and it's something that retailers really have to watch very closely.

The premium as well is important because the wage level is relatively modest. As everyone here knows, customers are unforgiving in their search for value. That keeps a lot of downward pressure on wages. So a payroll tax like UI is important both to employers and employees in the trade.

We also recognize that UI does play an important counter-cyclical role in the economy. It does help to sustain sales in periods of downturn.

My paper identifies a number of areas upon which we have focused. The bill is very extensive, but what I've tried to do for this afternoon is identify two or three of the items that are of greatest concern to us.

As a general comment, I would like to point out that our organization does support the directions in which the government is moving. We are perhaps a little disappointed that the government is not going as far or as fast as we would like it to go, but we feel that the succession of changes to UI in recent years indicates that the government does recognize that the program has gotten out of control and needs to be reigned in and made much closer in terms of operation to the principles that established it. We certainly support the higher thresholds for entry, the cap on maximum earnings and some of the elements of the shift toward active support measures.

I'd like to turn to some specific items now, Mr. Chairman. The first item to address is the question of the first-dollar premium payment. There I would note that this is something the Retail Council opposed from the outset primarily because of the impact it would have on the trade itself. That stems from the fact that we are major employers of students and part-time employees.

The first point to make is that the 1990s have been an extremely difficult decade so far for the trade. There is no money in the retail trade to pay for this extra cost.

Anything in the way of an extra cost with respect to UI premiums almost inevitably will come out of the human resource budget of firms. That means fewer hours of work, fewer positions and lower pay. So every dollar you take away from the retail trade to pay UI premiums means another dollar less that will go in the pockets of employees who, we frankly acknowledge, are only modestly paid.

That's because profit margins and general retail margins themselves are at all-time lows, the competitive pressures in the industry are very high, and merchants are feeling a great deal of pressure to give the very best price to their customers.

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I'd like to give you a little bit of information about the importance of part-time, also part-timers who work fewer than 15 hours a week, and the importance of students in the industry. I've drawn this material from some work we've done over a course of years for a number of different presentations dealing primarily with payroll taxes, so I don't have a solid statistically valid base to give you, but I think it's reasonably reflective of the practice in the industry.

Roughly 60% to 90% of all the employees in retail stores today are part-timers, and the trend is very much to move to that upper end. That simply reflects the need to contain costs and to respond to the shopping patterns of Canadians. Canadians want to shop in the pattern that suits their personal needs, and the challenge is to the retailer to have the staff there when the customer wants to shop.

We also have a fair number of part-time employees who in fact work fewer than 15 hours a week. It's a wide range. When I've talked with my members, we find that some stores have as few as 10% working fewer than 15 hours and some as many as 50%. It just depends upon the mix the store has, the types of products they sell - the type of store. Most of our members seem to run in the range of between 20% and 35% of their staff being employees who work fewer than 15 hours a week.

It was even more difficult to get you some data on how many students there are in retail and that's because most retailers don't particularly care about the educational status of their employees. So we have even less hard data there, and the range again is fairly wide. It goes from a low of say 5% to 10% in some stores up to around 40% plus in other stores, and again it depends upon the type of store. Most of our members seem to be reporting that student part-timers in their stores made up about 15% to 20% of their total employment population.

So that does mean that the movement to payment of premiums with the first dollar of income has a very heavy effect on the retail trade, and we do not believe that the proposed palliative measures the government has proposed are sufficient for the industry. In fact, they're completely inadequate. They certainly do not compensate students or firms for the losses they will suffer. The amount is capped, and it is only temporary, whereas the increases will go on forever.

Obviously our first preference would be for there to be no change in the basis for charging UI premiums, but if the government feels it must go ahead and make this change, we've thought of a couple of ways in which there could be some accommodation for that. The first would be to allow individuals to request that they be exempted from paying UI premiums, and that would give, we believe, many of our members - part-time employees - the opportunity to drop out. Many of these individuals are second income earners or people for whom dollars in their pockets are very important. Particularly in the case of students, of course, the opportunity to get any benefit from paying those premiums is very low.

The second option we would propose to the committee if it was not prepared to make any changes to the government's proposals in this area would be for there to be a general exemption from premiums and coverage for full-time students, and we feel just in principle that would be the right thing to do. The students are really in effect not eligible for unemployment insurance coverage now, and it would also recognize the particular needs of students who again are much more interested in cash in their pockets today to pay for the cost of their education than they are in some very remote possibility of protection in the social safety net program.

Finally, we believe the requirement that students in fact cross-subsidize other employees in the workforce is just not right.

Let me talk briefly about the UI account surplus. We have supported the creation of a surplus in the UI account so that the fund will not fall seriously into deficit during a downturn, and we believe that a surplus somewhere in the neighbourhood of $5 billion to $6 billion should be sufficient protection for cyclical downturns. This would allow the rate to fluctuate somewhere around 25¢ to 35¢ over the course of the cycle, and we think it would allow the financing of the programs and also their operation in a counter-cyclical fashion.

If the premium rate continues at its current level, the fund will quickly reach its cap - what we would suggest is a cap of perhaps $6 billion - and then you'd see the surplus rising beyond that.

We would strongly recommend that the surplus be capped at $6 billion and secondly that the committee suggest to the minister that he call for a reduction in the premiums for 1997 in the order of 60¢ to 70¢, whatever the arithmetic happens to work out to.

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I was delighted to hear the minister say yesterday that he supported a drastic reduction in UI premiums. It would seem to me that once you've reached the $6 billion figure, indeed the government should be requested by this committee to carry out that promise of the minister.

Finally, let me talk very quickly about the employment gap issue, which I think Mr. Young raised with this committee in his remarks when he brought the bill forward. He was concerned about how the new method of calculation might reduce individuals' earnings for calculation when a benefit is to be paid.

We recognize the concerns there. Obviously these concerns have arisen because the government has chosen to change the basis on which to charge premiums, so the problem is solved if the government were not to change the basis for calculating premiums. Again, if the government must go forward, we would warn you that this will be very burdensome for firms.

One of the reasons that the business community has been encouraged to support the movement to hours is that it was going to be administratively easier to operate. We are very concerned, especially in the retail trade, that if we have to go to some method of tracking hours and weeks of work, we have lost any of the benefits of administrative simplicity that were going to be promised by the move to hours.

It's important for the committee to understand how a retail operation works. The concept of an employment pool in retailing is very different from the concept of a body of employees that you'd have in most other employment type situations.

Retailers have a number of employees, many of whom do not work on a regular or consistent basis with the firm, who have the right to refuse work without any repercussions whatsoever. What that does is to give the firm and the employees a great deal of flexibility in tailoring the hours to the needs of both the firm and the employee.

Employees trade shifts. Students come to an employer and say they have exams coming up and they don't want to work for a month. By having a much larger pool of individuals who are prepared to work, the employer can staff the operation within that range of flexibility, but then trying to track all those movements for part-time employees becomes very burdensome. Particularly for small independent retailers, the burden of doing that would be very onerous indeed.

We think the likely result, if something like this goes through, is that retailers will respond rationally. They will trim the number of employees they have in their employment pool and they will limit the flexibility that those employees have. Neither of those things benefit the employer or the employee, but we feel those will be fairly natural results of the government's actions in this area if it becomes administratively burdensome.

Mr. Chairman, those are my opening remarks. I'd be glad to respond to any questions.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Woolford.

We'll have a five-minute round, starting with Mr. Dubé.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé (Lévis): Thank you for your presentation. At the outset, you say you're rather favourable to the government's reform. However, in listening more closely to you I could see you entertain many reservations and even some rather important objections especially as concerns students. In particular, you say you're rather favourable to the status quo which is those working fewer than 15 hours a week should not have to pay premiums.

The second element you stressed was the number of people, in your sector, who work part-time. Even though, as you pointed out, you don't have all the data on students particularly, you do have concerns.

A lot of witnesses have told us so far that the payment of premiums with the first dollar of income, as opposed to the present obligation of working more than 15 hours, would mean access to unemployment insurance for many.

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However, when we refine the calculations... You have clearly stated that 10% of your association's members work fewer than 15 hours. I would like to give you an opportunity to explain this point. How can you state you're favourable to that government position when you know that people working part-time, more specifically students working fewer than 15 hours, will never get any benefit from it?

That's a major thing! It's not peanuts.

Mr. Woolford: Yes, you're right, and that's why I pointed it out.

At the outset, I indicated we agreed with the proposal for higher threshold entry to have access to the program's benefits.

We prefer the proposals on maximum insurable earnings and also some of the broad lines making the program's aid measures more efficacious.

The broad lines point to the right direction. However, from our standpoint, the proposal creates a serious problem for students and part-time workers. Actually, that problem doesn't affect only 10% of our members, but most of them.

As I said, our members are to be found in many different situations. Some are experimenting... Some have only a few part-time employees working fewer than 15 hours a week. A few others have about 40% of their employees working fewer than 15 hours a week.

In the retail sector, there are some businesses who fear they'll have a lot of problems with part-time workers and students. That's the question that concerns us most. It's the one that's most important to us.

Mr. Dubé: The most important point.

[English]

Mr. McClelland (Edmonton Southwest): I wish to thank you very much for your presentation. I want to tell you that from my background of almost 30 years in the retail business, I think everything you've said is absolutely true, particularly about how payroll taxes affect employment.

Mr. Woolford: That's good to hear.

Mr. McClelland: As payroll taxes increase, employment decreases.

In terms of this particular bill, I too think it's going in the right direction by taking it more to the Forget commission report and making it insurance. We should look at income subsidy differently and not use unemployment insurance as social engineering or whatever. In terms of making this more efficient, making it a better bill, I want to point out that there are many people who work part-time because they want to work part-time. Not everybody, but a lot of people do it as a quality of life.

Would we be improving the bill if we were to put in a minimum number of hours before unemployment insurance premiums kick in? If the average is 15 hours a week, which I think is a fairly legitimate number, based on a 52-week year that works out to 780 hours. So a person would not have to pay unemployment insurance premiums until they hit that threshold of 780 hours.

That would be cashflow in the pockets, particularly of students, particularly for summer employment. It would also eliminate the necessity of refunding the premiums from the government. It would make it much more efficient and would be much less of a pain in the butt to everybody concerned. Would you concur with that kind of a recommendation for an adjustment to this bill?

Mr. Woolford: Certainly that's an option that would be attractive to us as well. In Saskatchewan, at the provincial level, I believe a number of their programs with respect to part timers don't kick in until 700 or 780 hours. Again it's a recognition that there are lots of people with only a very marginal attachment to the labour force. So we could certainly support that.

Mr. McClelland: We have to move on. I wasn't aware that Saskatchewan has a floor of 700 hours.

Mr. Woolford: I don't recall exactly what the number is. It was quite a few years ago that we worked on it.

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Mr. McClelland: If there is a common floor across the country, then this would certainly make it beneficial. So the notion of a floor makes sense and we should try to.... I don't want to use the word ``harmonize'', but if it's possible -

Mr. Woolford: With us, that's a great word.

The Chairman: It is a politically charged word.

I gather that was just a comment.

Mr. McClelland: No, I've finished.

Mr. Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce): Mr. Woolford, I'm having a hard time understanding the Retail Council and one other group that came and was putting forward the same views. For the last 20 years, there's been an unmistakable trend in the retail business to move many of its workers from full time to part time. I'm not talking about the small retail industries; I'm talking about Eaton's, The Bay, and similar big retailers. I can understand that they would do those things for good business reasons, but I can't understand why they would oppose our trying to include the people who work fewer than 15 hours a week in some type of system that would assure them that they can pay their rent and pay for their food when they're laid off.

You yourself admitted that there's a greater and greater trend - and I'd say it's a deliberate trend - to go to part-time workers. How does the Retail Council expect these people to stay alive when they're put out of work? Are you suggesting that we should develop more and more soup kitchens or that we should put more money into the welfare system? How are these people to stay alive? I just don't understand.

I can understand your trying to develop the best profit margin possible, and therefore your moving to part-time workers. But when we as government, who have to take care of these people, move to do something to help them and include the people who work fewer than 15 hours a week - many of them doing two or three jobs, if they can find them.... What's going to happen to these people if we don't try to take care of them? What's your solution?

Mr. Woolford: A couple of mistakes lie behind your question.

First, you'll note that the first proposal we had was to allow the individual himself to decide whether he wished to be covered or not. So we left the option entirely with the individual. If the individual wished to be covered under unemployment insurance, then he simply got covered, whether he worked one hour or 40 hours a week.

If they worked fewer than 15 hours and the cash in their pockets was important to them - they were a second-income earner or someone who was doing it as a retiree to catch a bit of extra cash - many of those people were not interested in having unemployment insurance coverage. You give them the option, in fact, to maximize their earnings.

Second, we suggested that we should apply this to full-time students. Full-time students are effectively not eligible for UI coverage anyway.

Mr. Allmand: You mean if they're not available for work.

Mr. Woolford: They're not available for work. So you're requiring them to pay money, which they need for their studies, to subsidize, in effect, other people in the labour force. We feel that in principle that's wrong.

So the two options we have brought forward are beside the point of what you're trying to say.

We feel that in this way you give the individual the opportunity to make his or her own decision as to whether unemployment insurance is appropriate for him or for her if they fall below that threshold, let's say, of 780 hours.

In the second case, why should students, who in most cases don't even qualify for eligibility, be required to pay this money?

Mr. Allmand: Let me deal with that.

On the individuals who might make a choice, I can see what would happen. If somebody goes for a job and he's advised that you can make a choice, that either you can choose not to be included in the unemployment insurance system or you can decide to be included, then the guy who decides not to be included would very likely get the job.

My trouble with this solution is that most people who absolutely need the job will say ``I'll take it anyway, even though I'm not included'', and once they're laid off they're thrown onto the welfare system or they end up in the soup kitchens.

We're not a country that will let people starve on the streets. We have to do something about them.

The students are different, but I have these people coming into my constituency office who have worked for some of those large retailers for years and the company has moved nearly its whole workforce into part-time workers and those were the only jobs those people had. Then when they're laid off, they have nothing.

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Now there's a certain percentage who want to work part-time and that's fine, but surely.... As I say, I can understand businesses wanting to make a profit. That's their role. But it's our role to try to make sure that these people are not left with no -

By the way, the figures given to us are that in 1990 87% of the unemployed had unemployment insurance. Today only 46% of the unemployed have any unemployment insurance. That means the vast majority of unemployed have nothing but welfare and private charity. The gap between rich and poor in this country is becoming wider, crime rises, and alcoholism and all sorts of psychiatric problems arise because people don't have anywhere to go.

I'll finish with this. I can recall a few years ago when there were massive lay-offs in Sudbury because international prices for nickel went down. The unemployment insurance system kept Sudbury going because at least those people had money to buy groceries, to pay their rent, to buy basic clothing and so forth. This kept the money moving around in the retail area so that - unlike the 1930s - businesses didn't go bankrupt. It seems to me it's in the best interest of business to have a sound unemployment insurance system so that in downturns there's at least a minimum amount of money with which to buy things.

Mr. Woolford: If you recall, we acknowledged that in our submission.

I have a couple of points. The sense I get from our members is that in fact there's a fairly large percentage of their part-time employee base that wants to work part-time.

Mr. Allmand: All right. I have no problem with that.

Mr. Woolford: Second, many of them are secondary income earners; that is, a husband or a wife who is a second income earner in the household.

Third, there is a large number of retired people who have retired with a second pension income who are doing this part-time to fill in their time. The number of people who are actually forced to work part-time is certainly not the majority of the employees.

On another point, I come back to the fact that you allow the individual to make that choice.

Let's also remember that we're talking about people who in this case are working fewer than 15 hours a week. Already their attachment to the labour force is marginal. The majority of part-time employees already are working 15 to 24 hours a week. Those people would automatically be covered and those are the people who in many cases are looking to unemployment insurance and the income they're earning as a significant part of the family income.

Those who are working fewer than 15 hours a week are really very marginally attached to the labour force. Recognizing the demographics of this group, we've tried to minimize the burden of this program on the employees and their employers, recognizing that many of them don't need it or don't want it. We feel they should at least have the opportunity to take that option.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Woolford. That concludes the presentation. On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you. You've raised some interesting points in relation to the exemption. We'll of course evaluate your suggestions according to their merits.

I'd also like to thank the members of your organization who worked to put this brief together. Thank you.

Mr. Woolford: Thank you.

The Chairman: The next presentation will be from the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. The presenter will be Laurie Beachell, national coordinator.

Mr. Beachell, this is not a new environment for you. I remember seeing you in front of the Human Rights and Status of Persons With Disabilities Committee. I've seen you at other interventions. I don't think I need to explain to you how this works. We have approximately 25 to 30 minutes. That includes the time for your presentation.

Welcome. We look forward to your intervention.

Mr. Laurie Beachell (National Coordinator, Council of Canadians with Disabilities): Thank you very much.

Our chairperson, Francine Arsenault, had hoped to be here today. Unfortunately, illness in the family kept her home. She would have liked to be here and I wish she were here as well.

Our organization is a national umbrella organization of persons with disabilities. We have provincial member organizations as well as six other national bodies that are members of CCD. The six are the National Education Association of Disabled Students, the Disabled Women's Network of Canada, the National Committee on Mental Health, the Canadian Association of the Deaf; the Thalidomide Victims of Canada; and the People First of Canada.

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Our organization comes today to you basically with two very simple messages. Those messages are that Canadians with disabilities want jobs and Canadians with disabilities want to keep jobs. Our concern with the legislation, frankly, is that the current reality for people with disabilities is that we are not getting jobs and we are not keeping those jobs. Those that are able to get into the workforce are not finding a secure attachment and are often gone within a very short period of time.

The legislation, which ensures benefits based on a significant attachment to the labour force, has little impact for our membership. By that I mean if we continue to use UI dollars to fund and support training initiatives in this country, and if we see within the human resources development department a continued diminishing of the consolidated revenue funds, our members effectively are excluded from labour market training in this country.

We do not have opportunities to get the training education that we want in order to get jobs. That is simply because we are not UI eligible. This piece of legislation, even though there may be some benefits for part-time workers, etc., has to address the fact that the catchment area of benefits for training opportunities for people with disabilities, even with the expansion of the definition from previous legislation, still does not significantly have an impact on our community, most of whom have been unemployed for a longer period of time - five years or more - many of whom have never had any attachment to the labour force, and most of whom exist on social assistance at this time.

If we do not see a mechanism to exempt people with disabilities from that eligibility criteria for the training dollars, we do not believe we will see any impact on increased participation of people with disabilities in the labour force.

Secondly, we have concerns with those people who have got into the labour force. The termination rate of those positions is extremely high. People with disabilities who have been able to find jobs are finding part-time, not by choice necessarily, or term positions, again not by choice, and are not able to stay within the labour force for a significant period of time.

We believe that only with a compulsory systematic review of terminations of employees with disabilities undertaken will we see some improvement on this act. Secondly, we believe that only with a significant targeting of resources to address the training and employment needs of persons with disabilities will we see significant improvements. Our membership at this point is quite disheartened with the dramatic shifts we see in responsibility of the federal government as it affects persons with disabilities with a significant shift in social policy initiatives and the obligation that the federal government seems to feel in regard to people with disabilities.

At this point most of the initiatives we are looking at mean that we have to somehow find avenues for access through all of the various provincial governments and some harmonization of those programs across the country so we see some comparability of access as well.

I would just leave these as our opening thoughts and concerns: first, an exemption to the criteria so that people can get training; second, a mechanism to review the unacceptably high level of dismissals that are happening with people with disabilities; and third, the need for targeted resources to address training issues for people with disabilities.

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I will leave it by seeking a clarification as well. You will notice in our brief that we may have our numbers mixed up. This brief was prepared when the bill was introduced in the last session, but we're here again today. I know it's Bill C-12, although I don't think the act is any different; it's the same. So are there amendments coming forward from the government? When can those be anticipated? Will there be a second go-round for us to review those amendments and comment on them? What's the process from here on in?

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

I think you've outlined three major issues. In reference to the process question, members of Parliament are forwarding amendments. As a matter of fact, we're dealing with three or four that some members of Parliament have forwarded already. It's an ongoing process.

Will there be a second round after this? We're going to bring the bill back to the House and it will be debated there. Amendments can occur. But like any piece of legislation, of course, it's forever evolving. That's part and parcel of the democratic process. So I think you shouldn't lose hope.

We're going to have a five-minute round, starting with Mr. Dubé and followed byMr. McClelland, and then we'll go to Mr. Easter.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Mr. Beachell, thank you very much for your presentation. You represent people who, more than any others, need help to get back into the labour force - you said so yourself - and to stay there. We'll never be able to thank you enough for the work you're doing for people with disabilities.

The more the labour market shrinks, the more the difficulties you describe increase. Unfortunately, as another group also pointed out, there's very little if anything at all in the bill to improve the situation. However, during the pre-consultation and when we criss-crossed the country to meet people in every province, your members did put forth the same point of view as yours. Very little of all that is reflected in the bill. We, of the Official Opposition, have problems engaging in the amending process because there would be so many changes to be made that...

In your case, you're pointing out the omissions. I'd like you to remind us about them. You've made recommendations and you say that as far as eligibility is concerned, it doesn't work.

Am I wrong in saying that the disabled need concrete palliative measures? For example, we could provide them with equipment, accessories and so on. There's a whole series of disabilities for which something should be provided, somewhere. If we don't do it...

We actually need a part III to the bill. We've looked at parts I and II on employment services. In view of its inadequacy, even if we were to propose amendments, I get the impression we wouldn't be improving access to work for the disabled. Do you agree with me that it's not just a matter of moving amendments?

[English]

Mr. Beachell: I'd have to say this bill does not address the needs of people with disabilities. Frankly, this bill sets up a system in which, if you have had the opportunity to be in the labour market, you can get training and you can get benefits should your attachment be short-lived. But to get into this labour market, there is nothing here for people with disabilities without a removal of the entitlement required in your criteria about attachment of x number of weeks of work or hours of work, etc. You can't get into a training program. We're seeing programs across this country get shut down because the clients they serve are not on UI, and we presently have no other avenue because the consolidated revenue funds continue to diminish. That leaves people with disabilities as unemployable and existing on welfare. So yes, you're right, this bill does not address the needs of people with disabilities.

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[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. McClelland.

Mr. McClelland: I can understand how frustrating it must be because we've seen each other in different committees, and it's always the same thing. In this particular one, it's so painfully obvious that there is a catch-22 situation that people find themselves in. I want to be clear that if you died and went to heaven, and if there was one thing you could change in this bill, it would be the necessity of attachment to the labour market in order to qualify for training. That is the number one problem from your perspective.

Mr. Beachell: Yes.

Mr. McClelland: So that's clear.

It seems to me - and would you comment on this, because what we're trying to do is to improve this bill - that by using unemployment insurance funds for labour market training, what we are doing is asking people who are employed to fund potential training for themselves should they need training in the future, while disallowing people who have never been in the labour force but who may want to get into the labour force from accessing that training. Would it not make more sense to reduce the unemployment insurance premiums to factor out the cost of labour market training and to have labour market training done outside the UI envelope entirely, particularly since labour market training is a provincial responsibility and should be paid for by and should be considered the responsibility of the provinces? If the provinces are going to take on this responsibility, they should also take on the responsibility for paying for it. The premiums, which are the job killers in unemployment insurance, should consequently be reduced. Would you concur with a program such as that?

Mr. Beachell: I don't know that I would say I concur. As an equality-seeking organization, one thing our organization does not wish to do is diminish anyone else's rights or opportunities or access. If workers and employers currently wished to build a fund to assist those in the labour force right now to find employment training at a future date, that's fine by us. We're just saying that it does not in any way address the need of people with disabilities, and there has to be an avenue to address that need. If that means then taking the Consolidated Revenue Fund and doing a designation of allocation for training needs for people with disabilities within consolidated revenue, that's fine. If it means reducing the eligibility criteria within UI....

Our organization, frankly, has enough on its plate. We do not take position on what is a hindrance to labour-market job creation. We do not take position on whether premiums should be higher or lower. That's not the business we're in. We're saying that if employers and employees wish to use funds in that way to address their training needs at a future date, that's great. But that doesn't address our needs.

Mr. McClelland: But just so that I am clear, the way in which it is set up right now has the potential to discriminate against those who are not already part of the labour force, and those who are not part of the labour force are disproportionately represented by persons with disabilities.

Mr. Beachell: That's correct.

Mr. McClelland: So this legislation, as it is now, will make it even more difficult for people who already have a problem getting into the labour market if it goes through.

Mr. Beachell: Correct.

Mr. McClelland: Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Mr. Easter.

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Mr. Easter (Malpeque): I have a question on basically the same point from which Ian was approaching - the problem with the catchment area for people with disabilities. Under this legislation, does the attachment to the labour market within the last three years bring in some people who otherwise would not have been brought in?

Second, can your recommendation 4 be accommodated with partnerships between the federal government and the provinces by trying to have it as one of the criteria?

Mr. Beachell: Point 4 certainly could be the specific allocation of dollars for training opportunities for people with disabilities. In fact it has not been. Frankly, the programs at the local level seem to be more UI-driven than they are anything else. If you want training at the local level these days you had better be on UI.

The expansion to three years certainly does catch some individuals. Frankly, it catches many people who have been laid off in the last short while. It is those who were last hired and first fired who may now be eligible for this. But it does not address the mass of people with disabilities who have been unemployed within the last three years, particularly when you look at persons with mental handicaps. Many people with disabilities gave up looking for jobs long ago because they had to declare themselves unemployable in order to get certain social benefits or insurance, yet they do not wish to live in that world. They wish to be in the labour market.

There is no integration of those systems. Presently we do not see a dedicated allocation of resources or a commitment targeted to the training needs for persons with disabilities being enunciated within HRD or within provincial governments. If we can reach federal-provincial agreements that would target certain resources - and we suggest 15% - then it's great.

Mr. Easter: That would be a step in the right direction. Is that right?

Mr. Beachell: That's a step in the right direction but that is not what's happening right now.

Right now our employment training programs that have been in place for many years to assist people with disabilities are shutting down.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Easter.

Mr. Beachell, thank you very much for your presentation. We have noted some of the concerns you've raised and we'll certainly keep them in mind and take them into consideration as we try to improve this bill.

Mr. Beachell: Thank you.

The Chairman: Our next presentation will be from the Canadian Association of University Teachers. The interveners are Robert Léger, Donald C. Savage and Rosalind Riseborough.

Welcome. We are eager to hear your perspective on ways and means to improve Bill C-12. I'm sure this is not a new environment for you. You've probably been here before. You have half an hour. We'd like to hear from you and then have a question and answer session.

Mr. Donald C. Savage (Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers): We wish to express our thanks to the members of the committee for the opportunity to put our views to you.

Our brief to you deals with only two specific issues, not with the general overview of the unemployment insurance bill. One issue is the effect of the proposed changes on part-time academic staff. The section of our brief deals exclusively with university staff but it would also apply to community colleges. There are no national statistics about community colleges so it's difficult to be precise.

The second part of our brief deals with the effect of the proposed changes on the community colleges in relation to training. I should say that w e represent some 28,000 university academic staff across the country and 5,000 community college staff in British Columbia.

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Due to the short amount of time we had to prepare our brief - indeed, we were getting approval from various parts of the country this morning - it was not possible to produce our brief in both languages. However, we intend to make our presentation in both languages. For the first part of that presentation I would like to turn to my colleague, Mr. Léger, who will talk about the effect of the changes in UI on part-time academic staff.

[Translation]

Mr. Robert Léger (Official, Government Relations, Canadian Association of University Teachers): I'd like to speak briefly to the situation of part-time teachers or sessional lecturers in Canada.

First, there are a lot of part-time teachers or sessional lecturers. There were about 28,000 in 1992-93 and I would add that their number has probably not decreased since then. I rather think it has increased.

Their salary isn't very high. According to Statistics Canada, in 1992-93, the average salary of part-time teachers was $5,746 a year. Unfortunately, the data provided by Statistics Canada don't allow us to make a distinction between the professionals, for example a lawyer lecturing once or twice a year, and the real sessional lecturers, the ones who only teach. We know that the latter, the ones who only teach, are very numerous and that many of them are women.

The changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act - now employment insurance - are going to affect those people. The fact that eligibility to benefits is now based on the number of hours worked rather than on the number of weeks worked is going to affect sessional lecturers or part-time teachers. Actually, a lot of them work far fewer hours than 35 a week and you all know that number of hours is the basis of this new legislation text.

We have a particular problem which is probably specific to our universities. The way the hours worked are going to be accounted for at universities isn't at all clear.

After all, a teacher's work doesn't only involve giving one, two or three courses. It's also preparing those courses, correcting exams and meeting students. Some sessional lecturers are also engaged in research. There aren't many, but there are some. So all those aspects have to be accounted for when calculating the number of hours worked. We're asking the committee to look at this specific matter.

The new part-time teachers, the beginners, will also be affected by the 910-hour limit required to be eligible for benefits. The same goes for women sessional lecturers returning to work after pregnancy, for example. We believe this 910-hour limit is going to have adverse consequences for many of our members.

Thank you.

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[English]

Mr. Savage: The second part of our presentation deals with the effects on community colleges in Canada.

You'll be aware that one of the major educational achievements of this country since the Second World War has been to create an important system of community colleges across the country, the purpose of which was to provide technical and professional training, and university transfer courses in some provinces, at low and reasonable costs to Canadians. Indeed, community colleges have been one of the major vehicles for encouraging mobility in our country over the past thirty or so years. So it's important to think about the effect on the system from the training sections of the changes in UI.

I was reminded of the potential impacts. I have to say ``potential'' because we of course don't know what the negotiations between the federal government and the provinces will actually reveal in detail. But when I was discussing this with the member for Peterborough, who does have a community college in a city in his riding, he was somewhat fearful that up to a third of the courses in that community college might be affected if the changes were carried out in particular ways. So that is the background, I guess, to our concern.

We are aware that the federal government wishes to move the jurisdiction, in terms of community colleges, from the federal government to the provinces. It appears to want to increase privatization at the same time.

This is what we would ask of the committee. First, we want to try to secure a bit more precision from the minister as to what is actually going on in the negotiations between Ottawa and the provinces.

Given what's at stake in this issue, it is, we would suggest, quite important for this not to be an example of the more unfortunate side of executive federalism, namely, the private negotiations between Ottawa and the provincial governments in which the results are announced in parliaments. Eleven of them are invited to ratify what has been done without much participation by the stakeholders in the process.

For instance, the Speech from the Throne said that the government would accelerate its current discussions with the provinces on labour market training and development, to ensure the orderly withdrawal of federal activity in training, and to explore new approaches and appropriate roles and responsibilities at each level of government for strengthening national and local markets.

I'm not exactly sure what that means. It would be, I think, helpful if the committee could perhaps ask the minister for some clarification of what that means.

We are concerned that in the course of these negotiations important changes are being made to the way in which UI, and indeed other funds, such as consolidated revenue funds, will be used for training purposes. We are concerned about the potential level of cuts. But we are also concerned about the shift in terms of the responsibilities. We're not concerned about the shift to the provinces, but the shift to individuals. It does seem to us that the unemployed seem to be unlikely candidates for people to take on heavy debt loads in order to be able to take courses in terms of training, whether these are at community colleges or in private institutions.

Finally, we have a concern about the privatization side of things. We're not opposed to private colleges, but we are concerned about a situation in which there are no mechanisms, as far as we can see, in most jurisdictions to provide any notion of accreditation, quality assessment, or whatever you want to call it, in relation to these private institutions.

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Individuals are going to be invited to take on loans to go to private institutions in provinces like British Columbia, for example, where there is no such accreditation whatsoever created either by the federal government or by the provincial government.

Perhaps the federal government, when it is discussing these matters with a province like British Columbia, should ensure that those kinds of safeguards are in place before making such significant changes to the system.

Those are the two major issues we would like to place before you. I should perhaps say in conclusion that we have collaborated on this document with the National Union of Public and General Employees, who happen to represent more community colleges than we do and who in fact share our views on these matters.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Savage. Now we'll move to the questions. It will be Mr. Dubé, followed by Mr. McClelland, then Mr. Regan.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Thank you for your presentation. It is most relevant, especially these specific details you gave us on the situation of sessional lecturers. The figures you mentioned - 28,000 people - is rather impressive. The $5,746 average annual income surprises me, actually. That means a lot of them only give one course per term. However, there are also - and you pointed this out - more and more women I would describe as full-time sessional lecturers. I personally know several.

The worst of it that the same person often has to teach in several institutions which, statistically speaking, must complicate matters. I know someone in my riding teaching at four different universities in three areas, Montreal, Quebec City and the Saguenay - Lac-Saint-Jean. That involves incredible travelling.

You gave us a specific case. I'm very aware of how the hours will be accounted for. We will need very specific criteria for this. I'm glad you raised that point. You did it clearly enough. The government will have to be just as clear in the amendments and changes they'll make to the criteria used to do the hour count.

I'd like Mr. Savage to be more specific on what he said about one third of the courses being dispensed by community colleges. He was no doubt referring to professional training. I'd like him to elaborate further because one third seems a lot. You're afraid of losing those courses to private institutions. I'd like you to be more specific on that because I'm surprised.

Mr. Léger: I'm glad to hear you say that you agree with us on the case of sessional lecturers, especially the women. I'm especially glad to hear you say we should look further at how we should count the hours worked by our sessional lecturers in our universities.

[English]

Mr. Savage: There's perhaps one other matter to be addressed in relation to the part-time professors and the chargés de cours. It is true that in cities like Toronto and Montreal, people can get perhaps one course at one university and another course at another university. If you do the arithmetic, you will see that this doesn't add up to a very princely living standard in any event. But that's simply not true in St. John's, in Saint John, in Brandon, and in many parts of the country where there are universities or community colleges. There are not other alternative employments; that's the only employment there is.

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It's also important to realize that, given the massive nature of the cuts to the CHST in particular, it is extremely likely that universities are not going to be in the position to convert many people from part-time to full-time positions in the near future. The reverse is more likely to take place. So this is likely to be a developing and not a retreating problem.

In relation to the question about private colleges, I say two things. One is that there are now some 900 private colleges in British Columbia alone. That I think tells you that this is a significant problem that one should be thinking about. Secondly, there are some clear examples, and we've given one in our appendix, of the abuse of the situation in which a private training program was set up that was simply a scam.

I would draw the attention of the committee to the fact that in the United States, where there are of course a significant number of very reputable private community colleges and technical schools, there is a subset that are not reputable at all and that have for many years practised a significantly expensive scam on the American taxpayer. That is, they vigorously recruit students who it is quite obvious will not be able to survive any course that is given. Those students collect the federal funds, they pay the fees to the college, and the college promptly fails them out and of course keeps the money.

What do they do with the money? They keep some of it for themselves, of course, but they spend a good deal of it on congressional races to ensure there is a substantial group of people in Congress who will never vote for any reforms or changes to the system. There are reforms that have been before Congress for two years, and it's only just recently that it looks as though finally Congress will take steps to ensure that scams will be harder to arrange under the arrangements that exist for the federal funding of private training colleges in the United States.

The Chairman: Mr. McClelland.

Mr. McClelland: As a graduate of a community college and with a member of my staff as a part-time lecturer at Concordia, you've certainly hit a good number of bells here today. But the bell that resonates the most is this -

Mr. Easter: Ian had his bell rung.

Mr. McClelland: I wonder whether our new legislation will have addressed the red flag that you raised in your comments. There are two things I'd like to get your definitive opinion on. First is the attachment to potential labour market training paid for out of UI funds and the catch-22 position that people find themselves in, whereby unless they have prior attachment, they can't get the training. That's the first question.

The second part of the same question is that existing today in Canada, to albeit a smaller degree than you described, is a situation whereby through unemployment insurance there are training programs people are participating in that may or may not ever graduate anybody who will ever get a job. These are entrepreneurs who have put together training courses, managed to suck the government into paying for them so they will have a student base. So they have really just got themselves jobs. I can think of one that springs to mind: training nurses in holistic massage and aroma therapy. It is paid for by the government at the same time that funding for community colleges and universities is threatened.

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To your knowledge, is there anything in this legislation, or is there anything we could do...? I'm not suggesting that we should not have entrepreneurship in education. What I'm suggesting is that there must be some way to measure the efficacy of the investment in that training so that there would be no funding going to an institution that did not have an 80% take-up rate of its graduates, with those graduates working in their fields for three years - something of that nature. Would this be an improvement to the legislation, particularly if the labour market training stays in and is paid for by the employees and employers? Could the legislation be improved if some such check and balance was put into this legislation?

Mr. Savage: Let me try the second of those first.

One of the difficulties of attaching a nation-wide rule to these circumstances is that it's likely to have significantly different effects in different parts of the country - not only in this area, but in other areas where there has been talk of this sort of thing. In a part of the country where there in fact is very heavy unemployment, you could adopt a rule that sounded sensible in say Toronto or Vancouver but could be a disaster in Newfoundland. I would suggest to you, first of all, that you would want to look at any such rules carefully to make sure that they in fact did not deleteriously affect the poorest parts of the country.

Mr. McClelland: May I interrupt just to clarify? Would you suggest, then, that all funds for labour market training be used exclusively by the provinces?

Mr. Savage: We have not objected to the decision of the federal government to negotiate the transfer of labour market training to the provinces. What we have said, though, is that it's happening in a way in which we just don't know what's going on. In the Speech from the Throne, it sounded like there will be an ongoing role of some kind for the federal government.

I thought your question asked whether or not there should be some conditions attached if there is some ongoing training. In answer to that, I don't think we see any problem in principle with some conditions provided they're well thought out, and one of the parameters is how they affect different parts of the country. However, I think you would also want to have a combination of things. You might want to look at what the Americans are attaching to their own legislation in the way of conditions, in terms of failure rates, for instance, and in training programs and that sort of thing.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. McClelland. Mr. Easter.

Mr. McClelland: I'm sorry. We just have such a short time. Thanks very much.

Mr. Regan (Halifax West): Easter is not quite here yet, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Oh, sorry about that.

Mr. Regan: Thank you for coming, witnesses. I have a number of questions.

I see you don't have numbers to distinguish between how many teach part time as an extension of a full-time job, how many have other jobs, and so forth. You don't have a lot of information about that on university professors, it seems, but that would be helpful. It's unfortunate you don't have it, but perhaps you can tell us how many university professors you're aware of who actually use unemployment insurance in the course of a year.

You also talk about the situation of people who are working fifteen hours of work per week. My experience is that in the regular workforce - and I'm curious to hear what the experience is in universities - you don't find people working fifteen or sixteen hours a week because the employer is far better off to have somebody at fourteen hours a week to avoid paying benefits and to avoid paying premiums for UI. So they don't work sixteen or eighteen hours, they work fourteen.

It seems to me that it has been a problem in the past that people have of course had an incentive to hire only part-time in businesses, department stores and so forth. We're trying to avoid that, and we're also trying to make the system simpler administratively. I'm looking for a way in which to account for the concerns you have, yet still deal with those problems.

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I'm also interested to know whether you're aware of the changes proposed by members of the committee to deal with the issues of the divisor, the gap or dead weeks - weeks with no work - and the intensity rule. The big one, as I see it mentioned here, is the divisor. You deal with the issue of the fixed weeks period - of 16 weeks and so forth and 20 weeks. Proposals I've made for a change to that would be that in the areas where there is the highest unemployment. Actually, in every area, you take the eligibility period. So if it's an area where it's 16 weeks eligibility, you would take that now in hours and then add two weeks to that to get your divisor. That would be the same everywhere, whereas right now the increase you require to get the full benefit is much higher in the high unemployment areas than it is in the low unemployment areas where it's easiest to get additional work.

Some of these proposals have been in the media, and I don't know whether you've had a chance to study them at all. I guess you can't give me a reaction to that one. All right.

The other thing is that you're talking about people who in some cases are apparently low income. In the numbers, at least, they're paid for this particular work they're doing as university professors teaching courses. I know it's not fair what other work they're getting, but it seems to me that if they are, because of this, in low-income families, they would be among 350,000 Canadians who will be helped by the family income supplement. This means if they're dual parent families, they'll get 7% more on average, and if they're single parents, they'll get 10% more in terms of their benefits, so I think you'd be in favour of that measure.

I'm also curious to know whether you're in favour of the clawback for those who are in higher incomes, because in my riding people have certainly said to me that a person shouldn't be able to earn $50,000 per year every year and then $10,000 more on UI every year. That's a lot at once, and maybe you can give me your reaction.

Mr. Savage: Let me try a couple, and perhaps Mr. Léger can also chime in on things.

First of all, on the issue of universities as employers in relation to the definition of hours of work and that sort of thing, the truth of the matter is that the universities have never really had to think about this, because in the past there were two criteria. There was a dollar criteria as well as an hour criteria, and it was quite clear under the dollar criteria who qualified and who didn't. If you move strictly to hours, you have the problem that we've raised. University administrations simply haven't addressed this, but what seems likely to happen.... We talked to one university administration yesterday, and it was going to sit down and negotiate it with the union that represented part-time employees in the university. That suggests to me that there's going to be 100 or so different definitions of what this is going to be from each of these institutions, and it's going to create I would have thought a certain amount of chaos for the agency of the government that has to deal with this situation.

It might be better if the stakeholders could have some discussions with those who are responsible to try to ensure that there was some national understanding of what the workload of a part-time professor and a chargé du cours actually happen to be. We haven't had the experience, therefore, of people reducing the hours by one or two or something like that to avoid paying the premiums, but that might happen now.

Mr. Regan: I know that we had this morning, for instance, someone here from the flight attendants' union who was saying.... We found in that case it's piecework and is calculated differently, and it may be the same case here; I don't know. Perhaps we can get that information.

Mr. Savage: In terms of the data about part-time people, if you want further discussion about data, Rosalind Riseborough is in fact our expert in relation to data on the academic profession and our relations with Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada has only relatively recently begun to collect data on part-time university faculty, and it does not collect data at all on community college teachers, whether they are full-time or part-time. The data, correct me if I'm wrong, I think is several years out of date in relation to part-time. In other words, I think 1992-93 is the most recent data we've been able to get. It does not distinguish between professionals who have another job and those who are simply relying upon their part-time status.

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But it's clear to us that there are in particular a fair number of people who started out in their careers who find that the declining budgets of universities means that it's harder and harder to get a full-time job. In order to keep within the discipline and the possibilities of having an academic career, they have to take a part-time job. They're not doing that because they want to; they're doing it because they have to.

We can't give you any figures, because another thing that Statistics Canada can't supply is that kind of data. So we can only rely on what we anecdotally have heard from our local associations in various parts of the country. But that group of people is clearly growing.

So it is regrettable that we can't tell you precisely how many there are, but it is a significant group of people in the university community. It's one that I think is particularly important, because in many cases these are people who would like to be the next generation of researchers, scientists and professors.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Savage. Mr. Proud.

Mr. Proud (Hillsborough): This is just really a clarification of one of the issues you raised, Mr. Savage, which dealt with privatization. You mentioned that for instance in British Columbia there are 900 colleges. I wonder if you could give me an idea of what kind of colleges these are.

The reason I ask the question is that in my own area, the staff of a local community college came to me with a concern about the rising up of CompuCollege and other places like this. When we brought the people in who were purchasing the services, they showed us the reasons why.But I wonder what types of colleges you do put into this group of say 900 and other privatizations of these institutions.

Mr. Savage: In terms of what they might cover, there is an infinite variety as there is in courses at community colleges. We are informed by our colleagues in British Columbia that they do tend to focus on certain kinds of technical training and on teaching English as a second language.

But I don't want to paint the wrong impression. We're not saying that all private colleges are bad. Obviously, there are reputable, good private colleges. But we're saying that there's no way in British Columbia that the British Columbia government or the federal government could answer this question: are all those colleges in fact delivering a product that is honest, viable and that sort of thing? It seems to me that if we're going to rejig the whole system of delivering the community college type of education, we should be asking that question and putting it up front. That's all.

Mr. Proud: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Savage, Mr. Léger and Ms Riseborough, for your presentation and for giving us some advice on how to improve this bill.

I'd like to take this opportunity, before we head for the Easter break, to thank all the members of the committee for their excellent work. It's been an intense and extensive consultation with the people of Canada.

As you know, we will come back April 15. We will have hearings from April 15 to April 18.I believe that's correct. Then we move on to clause-by-clause on Monday, April 22.

So everybody knows, let me be very clear here. When we come back, we're going to go through, once again, an intensive week of consultation. The following week is clause-by-clause.I expect that the members of this committee are going to cooperate in the best spirit possible to make sure that what we heard from the interveners registers, and also that we in fact improve this piece of legislation. As chair, I expect full cooperation on both sides. I want the clause-by-clause to be as smooth an exercise as possible, taking into consideration all the things we have heard.

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In that light, I would also like to say that if there are amendments and you already know about them, if you want to be courteous to the rest of the members of the committee start talking with each other and sharing the amendments we have so we can begin to go through them, at least in our own minds. I know there's going to be a debate and that's part and parcel of the committee process - and there should be a debate - but I expect full cooperation.

Now that I've said all that, I wish you all a very happy Easter.

I'm going to take some comments. Mr. Dubé, you were first, then Mr. Allmand, and then we'll go to Mr. McClelland.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Mr. Chairman, an organization called the Coalition gaspésienne sent you a letter asking the Committee to go and meet with their members over there. I think you got that letter during the last few days.

The Chairman: Yes, as well as a letter from the people in the Maritimes.

Mr. Dubé: I'd like to raise that point so we can settle it.

Of course, we support the principle because, quite clearly, that's the area of the country where this reform has raised the most concerns and questions.

That said, I'd like us to look at that possibility. We could add that to our future work for the week of April the 15th.

[English]

The Chairman: Unfortunately, it's not even an option worth considering, because the committee members made up their minds at the beginning of the hearings that we were not going to travel and that we were going to use teleconferencing and video-conferencing to reach as many Canadians as possible.

We should also remind ourselves that this particular bill is really the offspring of the social security review in which over 100,000 Canadians participated and stated their opinions.

I understand the great difficulties of some of the individuals in the Gaspésie, in areas in northern Ontario, in some parts of the Maritimes and in some parts of Montreal. This issue is a national issue. For us to go to the Gaspésie and not go to Vancouver or Montreal or other places would be unfair to the other Canadians.

I think we have to stick to our plan. That's why we have plans. It's so we know where we're going, with teleconferencing, videoconferencing and receiving the briefs. If the people from the Gaspésie have special concerns they can write us. I don't know if there's a possibility of reaching them with teleconferencing or videoconferencing. There's also a member of Parliament from the Gaspésie who has very eloquently raised some concerns about employment insurance to me and I'm sure he's raised concerns to the members of Parliament. That's part and parcel of the way the process works here.

But I could also tell you that the issues of the gap, the divisor and the intensity rule are things that in the amendments brought forward by members of Parliament are part and parcel of the concerns of the people from the Gaspésie. I'm sure that as a member of Parliament you're quite cognizant of their concerns. If you feel like that, bring forth amendments so we can clear up their problems.

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[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Mr. Chairman, you're right in reminding us of the original decision and you'll also remember that the Official opposition was in favour of holding hearings.

You talked about videoconferencing. Would it be possible to reserve a room like this one, say a hall in a hotel? As many organizations have shown interest, we could get them together and hold a videoconference and have them speak as a group. I'm sure the organizations in question could find a community hall that would be cheaper. That would allow the community to participate in the exchange.

I'm a member of the opposition, but I've been in politics for a while and I get the impression that answering that request that way might even be advantageous to the government because it would give the impression we're being receptive to the requests of people like that.

[English]

The Chairman: This is where I differ from you. I don't have to give anybody an impression. The process we've established in this committee is a very good process to start off with. I'm not in the business of giving people impressions. I'm trying to get at the meat of the matter and I'm looking for amendments from members of Parliament on both sides that will improve the present piece of legislation.

In reality the size of a room is not going to enhance the quality of the debate or the amendments or improve the piece of legislation. What will do that is if the individuals who you say are very concerned about this issue write things down on paper so we can look at them. With all due respect, if you want to open up a room to 200 or 300 people the reality is that those people aren't going to be expressing their point of view in half an hour to an hour. We're down to the basic fundamental issue of expressing what their concerns are.

I'm going to look into the possiblity of video-conferencing and teleconferencing. But what I'm really concerned with is how we, as members of Parliament, make sure that the piece of legislation we bring back to the House of Commons addresses precisely the concerns of the people you're talking about. That in itself is really an expression of good faith as parliamentarians.

I don't think it's an issue of filling up rooms that makes the lives of those people better. What makes the lives of those people better is the Bloc Québécois proposing a worthy amendment to help those people, an amendment that will be accepted by the committee. That's the issue. That's why we are here. We're not show people. We're substantive individuals whose interests should be to better the lives of people and to better this bill, period. That's the only thing we're here to do.

You know those 200 people in the hall are not all going to be able to speak. It would be dishonest on my part to give them the illusion that they're all going to be able to say their piece, because they're not. I'm not in that business.

Mr. Regan: Mr. Chairman, may I add a comment? It seems to me that there are members on this side of the House who have brought forward constructive proposals that would in fact allay many of the concerns and in large part would allay the concerns put forward in areas like the Gaspé.

I must say that I am disturbed that there has been so little interest from Bloc members in the proposed amendments from this side, because it is clear to me that if there is no support shown in this committee for the amendments that we - Mr. Scott, Ms Augustine and I - are looking for we will not see them pass and we will end up with a bill that will probably be very close to what it is now. Those amendments would be a very significant benefit in areas like the Gaspé.

I hope that during the two-week break we have ahead of us our colleagues from the Bloc will look very closely at those proposals and see the benefit they would provide to those areas. I have seen no support from those members for those proposals.

The Chairman: Mr. McClelland, followed by Mr. Crête.

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Mr. McClelland: I would like to advise the committee that I'm going to recommend to our critic that the committee consider a couple of changes. One would centre around the necessity of a prior attachment for labour market training in order to get in. It has come up time and time again from the witnesses that it would be a great improvement to the legislation if there were no prior attachment requirement for labour market training. And the second is that there should be a base of a minimum number of hours, plus the option for people to opt in or opt out, as has come up from time to time.I would like to advise the committee that these are options I would like us to consider.

The Chairman: The practice has been that whenever there's a proposal, it should be forwarded to me as such in a formal letter. At that point in time, I put the proposal through to Human Resources Development; if we think it's a proposal that can go, we'll send it to HRD for analysis. We'll them come back and tell you as a committee whether it's feasible or not. Thank you.

Mr. McClelland: In both official languages? Or will you worry about that?

The Chairman: We'll worry about that, so I'll expect your French copy.

Mr. Allmand: Since we're going to start clause-by-clause on April 22, which is a week after we come back, I'm wondering whether the staff will have the usual summaries of the evidence available for us, maybe even by the 15th. I note that we've completed our 37th witness on this bill this afternoon. There's a hell of a lot of material and briefs in our offices. There usually is a summary made of the main proposals in the briefs so that we can see quickly who supported what point and who opposed what point. And we also have a lot of briefs that were sent to our offices by groups that did not appear. So it would be helpful, since it is very difficult for all of us to read all of those briefs.

The Chairman: You'll be receiving them.

Mr. Crête.

[Translation]

Mr. Crête (Kamouraska - Rivière-du-Loup): First of all, Mr. Regan, we're not living under a totalitarian regime and we have the right to think different thoughts than the government side. Moving amendments is not necessarily a sign of good faith as the government would wish, but by acting in such a way that the reform is the best possible for Quebeckers and Canadians. I can easily see that the way you're going about things is totally unacceptable. It's my fundamental right to say so.

That being said, I would like to formally move that the committee hold hearings for a day in the Maritimes and a day of teleconferencing as Mr. Dubé suggested. I am making this a formal motion and I would like to have a recorded vote. As this opposition comes from the regions, it's clear that part of the message is not reaching us during our committee meetings.

[English]

The Chairman: I'll entertain your statement, but there is also something I want you to know quite frankly, Mr. Crête. I find it ironic that you would at this late stage of the ball game make that proposal, after there was a general consensus to use video-teleconferencing as a way to reach out to people. It is, however, within your right as a member of the committee to do so, so I'll take that as a formal motion: You basically said that you would like us to travel to the Maritimes, and hold video-teleconferencing to reach Gaspésie. Is that correct? Is that the spirit?

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: I suggested we travel to the two regions in question.

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I move that we travel to the two regions in question and that, if ever it were not to be possible, that we at least hold teleconferences with those groups.

[English]

The Chairman: That's quite different. So we may be back actually to video-teleconferencing only.

Does everybody understand that if travelling is not an option, then we should do video-teleconferencing? The impression was that's what we're doing already.

Mr. McClelland: Mr. Chairman, we need two motions then, one and then the other.

The Chairman: Okay. The first motion will deal with what you basically said: if we cannot travel, then we should do at least video-teleconferencing in those areas. Is that clear?

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: Yes, but first of all, we have to decide if we want to travel. If we don't, then we'll have to know if we can at least have the teleconferences.

[English]

The Chairman: As far as I'm concerned, the committee has already made up its mind on the issue of travel, but if you want to put it in a formal motion we'll vote again. I don't like doing it, because when the committee has made a decision I stick to it, but I'll do it this time. I won't do it again, though; I'll tell you that now.

Mr. Allmand: I have a question of procedure. Most committees have a rule, and I don't know whether this committee adopted one when it organized, that for business that's not on the agenda for the day on which the meeting is called, you have to give notice of a motion. In other words, the motion could be tabled but couldn't be taken up within 24 hours. Otherwise we could all be giving motions and taking people by surprise.

Several committees of the House have such a rule, but maybe you don't. The only way to dispense with it is by unanimous consent.

The Chairman: Mr. Allmand, unfortunately we don't have that rule.

I want to get through this, so let's vote on the first motion.

Mr. Allmand: What's the motion? Could you read it for us?

[Translation]

The Clerk of the Committee: That the committee hold hearings of one day in the Maritimes and one day in the Gaspé Peninsula, if that is not possible, that it organize community teleconferences in both regions.

[English]

Mr. Allmand: I agree with teleconferencing, which we've agreed to already, but I'm opposed to -

Mr. McClelland: Mr. Chairman, for purposes of clarity, I suggest that we break it into two separate motions and vote on the travel first. Then we can vote on the teleconferencing if necessary.

Mr. Easter: Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order. I believe you stated that the committee has already made a decision. In that light, the motion is clearly redundant and shouldn't be considered. If the committee has moved a motion and has previously made a decision, this decision is redundant.

The Chairman: Mr. Crête, the purpose of your motion is to get on the record how you feel about travelling to and reaching out to Canadians. I think you've made that point, and that's fine.

In real terms, the spirit of your motion says that if we can't travel you'll be satisfied with video-teleconferencing. We're already doing video-teleconferencing. In that sense, we're back to where we were, but travelling is a non-starter. It's just not an issue, because we already have stated the direction and the parameters in which we were going to operate.

Is that fair?

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: If the committee is agreeable, I'm ready to simply move that we have video conferences as we had planned, but with a broader audience insofar is technically possible. There wouldn't be any travelling, then.

[English]

The Chairman: Are you withdrawing your first motion, then?

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: If I withdraw it? I will withdraw it if I can be assured that the second is acceptable. Okay, I'll withdraw the first one.

[English]

The Chairman: So now we're down to a motion to have video-teleconferencing in those areas. Is that what you're saying?

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: With a broader audience. Mr. Chairman, in Eastern Quebec, for example, people could meet in a university auditorium that could accommodate 100 to 150 people.

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[English]

The Chairman: Well, that's the motion and we'll vote on it.

Mr. Nault (Kenora - Rainy River): Mr. Chairman, before we vote, let's keep two things in mind. First of all, once we decide to have teleconferencing in all these little individual areas, then of course you can be sure that we'll hear colleagues from other parts of the country asking why we aren't doing it in northern B.C., which is just as important as the Gaspé as far as they're concerned.

The other issue is that we made a decision a number of weeks ago that there would be so many units for each opposition party and for the government side. As far as I'm aware, the Bloc has used pretty well all its units. You may have noticed that we have had more witnesses from Quebec than from any other province in Canada.

One of the problems I'm having to deal with, with the members from all across Canada, is that they can't get their witnesses because of the restricted amount of units because the opposition has had all its members and its witnesses from Quebec. So it seems like we're having Quebec hearings here, pretty much.

Based on that, Mr. Chairman, I think it's a very poor precedent to go and have special teleconferencing in Quebec, after we've had so many witnesses from Quebec. I think we should have a vote on it and as a government I think we should vote against it.

They'll be on record and they'll be happy, but quite frankly, I think it's time. It's been a long three weeks and I'd like to get it over with.

The Chairman: You're seconding the motion?

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: To what Mr. Nault said, I reply why not. I'd like to remind those of us who were here last year, and that includes Mr. Scott and yourself, Mr. Chairman, that when the committee went to Lévis, for example, it didn't cost anything. We simply ask you to allow the public to be present when a coalition or different groups gather in whatever city to appear as witnesses.

Why? Because in a regional setting, like in Gaspé, where I come from although I don't represent as a member, people don't have cable and so they don't have access to our deliberations. When the Minister came before us yesterday, a lot of communities couldn't tune in to our meeting.

So, at least in those areas where they don't have cable, let's let the members answer the people's questions. It doesn't involve any additional cost.

[English]

The Chairman: Okay, I'll call the question. Are we going to vote?

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: I'm calling for a recorded vote.

The Chairman: A recorded vote?

Mr. Crête: Yes. I want the people to know who's willing to meet them and who is not.

[English]

The Chairman: Yes, that's a very important point.

[Translation]

Mr. Crête: It's not a game. This is real life.

[English]

The Chairman: All those in favour of the motion.

Mr. Allmand: Is it a recorded vote?

The Clerk: It's a recorded vote.

Mr. Allmand: I'm confused. What is the question now? Is it that we have teleconferencing rather than -

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: A community teleconference.

The Clerk: A teleconference with an audience.

[English]

Mr. Allmand: We already have it. We've already agreed to teleconferencing.

Motion negatived: yeas 2; nays 5

The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned. Have a happy Easter.

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