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I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with disabilities.
Pursuant to the orders of reference of April 11, 2020 and May 26, 2020, this committee is resuming its study of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on May 26, 2020, the committee may continue to sit virtually until Monday, September 21, 2020 to consider matters related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other matters.
Certain limitations on the virtual committee meetings held until now are now removed. As just mentioned, the committee is now able to consider other matters, and, in addition to receiving evidence, the committee may also consider motions, as we normally do. As stipulated in the latest order of reference from the House, all motions shall be decided by a recorded vote.
Today's meeting is taking place by video conference, and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, please click on the microphone to activate your mike.
Before I get started, and this is especially for the witnesses who intend to present in both official languages, please ensure that the language channel you are speaking on is turned on at the time you are speaking. If you switch from English to French, please also switch the channel from English to French. It helps with the translation.
I would now like to thank the witnesses for joining us today. With us today we have, from the Canadian Labour Congress, Hassan Yussuff, president, and Emily Norgang, economist, social and economic policy. From the Christian Labour Association of Canada, we have Wayne Prins, executive director.
Mr. Yussuff, please proceed with your opening remarks. You have 10 minutes, sir.
:
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. It’s a pleasure to join you, even though it's remotely.
The Canadian Labour Congress is the largest central labour body in the country. It brings together more than 50 national and international unions in Canada, as well as 12 provincial and territorial federations of labour and 100 labour councils across the country. The CLC speaks on issues of national importance for three million unionized men and women. It also advocates on behalf of all working people in this country.
Committee members have received a copy of the CLC brief on labour priorities for the economic recovery.
The coronavirus pandemic and economic shutdown have been devastating for millions of working people. As you know, low-income workers, especially women and vulnerable workers, have disproportionately lost jobs and earnings in the crisis.
I will speak to some priority areas for the CLC and Canada’s unions.
On unemployment benefits, first, I want to commend the government and public service workers for quickly designing and implementing the Canada emergency response benefit, known as CERB. The employment insurance program was not equipped to handle the extraordinary spike in jobless claims. A simple unemployment benefit that allowed automated claims processing was needed. The CERB has generally worked well, but both unions and employers have urged the federal government to allow supplemental unemployment benefit payments on top of the CERB.
SUB plans were negotiated by unions and employers in anticipation of layoffs. We therefore urge the federal government to extend the CERB beyond the 16 weeks. Many low-paid, part-time and casual workers, as well as the self-employed receiving CERB benefits, are ineligible for EI under existing rules. At the same time, the EI regular sickness benefits should be simplified and streamlined so that the claims processing can be fully automated. The eligibility threshold should therefore be lowered and a higher replacement rate introduced.
Turning to long-term care, the Canadian Armed Forces’ reports on long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec show what unions have been saying for years: Many long-term care homes are in crisis. The needless cost of lives and shameful treatment of residents at many long-term care homes are unacceptable.
This situation was created by years of provincial budget cuts, increased private for-profit ownership of long-term care homes, and health care staff shortages due to low wages, few benefits, excessive workloads, unsafe working conditions and a lack of full-time hours. Of course, the provinces and territories are responsible for delivering health care services. However, Canada desperately needs high, uniform national standards for long-term care.
The CLC urges the federal government to work with the provinces and territories to remove private for-profit business from the long-term care sector. Long-term care must be brought fully into the public health system and regulated under the Canada Health Act. Residents must be guaranteed high-quality care, with proper staffing and health and safety protections for workers. As well, essential work done by long-term care employees must be properly valued. If we are going to address the staffing problems and shortcomings in residential care, workers need permanent increases in wages and benefits, and improvements in working conditions.
I again commend the federal government for allocating up to $3 billion to assist the provinces and territories in boosting wages for low-income essential workers. These wage increases must be made permanent, and, in my view, they should also apply to low-paid migrant workers ensuring the security of Canada’s food supply.
Canada’s public transit systems are also in crisis. Efficient, accessible and reliable public transit systems are essential to the economic recovery of working people. However, a 90% drop in ridership in some cities has meant a drastic drop in fares and billions in lost revenues. As transit authorities reduce services, thousands of transit workers have been laid off, with thousands more anticipated to be laid off.
Transit employees who are still on the job face serious health risks. Most transit vehicles and maintenance facilities have not been adequately retrofitted, and many workers lack sufficient personal protective equipment, or PPE.
In our view, the federal government should collaborate with the provincial and territorial governments to develop a federal relief package for public transit systems and intercity bus service networks, and provide capital expenditures dedicated to retrofitting transit vehicles and purchasing PPE for transit workers.
Ensuring workplace health and safety is vital for returning to work. Paid sick leave for workers is essential in combatting COVID-19. I want to commend, of course, the government, and the NDP in particular, for putting this on the agenda.
It is important that employers consult with workers, their unions, and health and safety representatives about how to make sure these safety plans and COVID-19 controls will work. Workers must be engaged through their health and safety committees in assessing workplace hazards related to COVID-19 and developing a response. This is an important part of good health and safety practices and must be included in workplace COVID-19 safety planning. We also need to expand support for workers dealing with mental health challenges arising from health risks, loss of loved ones, isolation, financial stress, and depression and anxiety.
On pharmacare, before the pandemic, about 10% of Canadians, or 3.7 million, could not afford the medications they needed. Now more Canadians cannot afford their medications, and millions of workers have lost their jobs and no longer have workplace drug coverage. During the pandemic, seniors on fixed incomes are struggling to pay for their medications, as they can only get refills month by month, as opposed to every three months, as it was prior to the pandemic.
We therefore urge the government to accelerate the implementation of universal public pharmacare as outlined in the Hoskins report. In conjunction with the provinces, the government should of course move to immediately provide everyone in Canada with access to a list of essential medications, covering approximately half of all prescriptions. This is consistent with the recommendations of the Hoskins report but represents an acceleration of the proposed timelines.
Turning to pension and retirement security, layoffs and lost earnings will have a lasting impact on the retirement security of many working Canadians. In March, the government reduced the minimum amount that must be withdrawn from registered retirement income funds for 2020. In May, the government also announced one-time financial assistance for seniors eligible for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. The government also suspended insolvency funding for federally regulated pension plans. We welcome these steps.
The CLC is also urging the government to work with provincial counterparts to amend the Canada pension plan. This will also be needed to safeguard the CPP retirement benefits of contributors whose earnings have been affected by the economic shutdown and unemployment crisis. In our view, this should take the form of amending the CPP’s drop-out and drop-in provisions, which partially protect the retirement benefit entitlement of contributors against a period of low or zero earnings.
In the absence of such extraordinary measures, the CPP retirement benefit of hundreds of thousands of Canadians will be permanently reduced, with potential lifetime losses to individuals in the thousands of dollars. Also, if insolvencies begin to rise, we would like to see, of course, the federal government protect pensions by taking over the administration of stranded pension plans.
Finally, on the green economy, just transition and infrastructure investments, in our view, this crisis presents a unique opportunity to kick-start economic growth and create thousands of good jobs for women and men by investing in social infrastructure like day cares, schools, libraries and hospitals, as well as green infrastructure and related projects, such as renewable energy, home and building retrofits, and public transit.
Governments can further ensure that projects benefit local communities, women, indigenous peoples and marginalized groups by mandating community benefit agreements on federally funded infrastructure projects. These investments would not only help us meet our climate targets, but also generate thousands of decent jobs across the country.
To assist in the process, the government should fully engage unions and working people in the government’s economic advisory committee providing guidance on recovery planning.
Committee members, that concludes my opening remarks. Thank you very kindly for your attention. I'll take any questions you may have.
Good day, everyone. I really appreciate the opportunity to meet with you today.
CLAC is a national union founded on the belief that people, businesses and work communities flourish when workplaces are based on co-operation and mutual respect. We believe that co-operation and partnership between labour and management create more positive work communities and better outcomes for everyone.
CLAC was established in 1952 and is today one of the largest independent multisectoral unions in Canada, with over 60,000 members working in a wide range of sectors and industries, including construction, health care, retail, transportation, manufacturing, food processing and others. Internationally, CLAC is an affiliated member of the World Organisation of Workers, for which I currently serve as president. The World Organisation of Workers collectively represents 1.5 million workers throughout much of the world.
We remain independent of traditional labour bodies in Canada, such as the Canadian Labour Congress, which you have already heard from. We have a great deal of respect for the traditional labour establishment, and in many instances we have come to work in collaboration with their affiliated members on ground-level initiatives. That we are not a member of the labour establishment speaks primarily to a different perspective regarding the nature and role of a union in a workplace, as well as worker choice and union accountability. However, in many respects, the day-to-day work of our unions is similar, and certainly we face the same challenges in today's environment.
I'd like to commend all parties for coming together and supporting a quick and effective response to the COVID-19 crisis. Key among the programs are the emergency response benefit and the emergency wage subsidy. The emergency response benefit has been extraordinarily successful in helping millions of Canadians through the worst of this crisis, and the emergency wage subsidy, particularly significant because it is a 75% subsidy, has literally saved thousands of Canadian businesses and kept millions of Canadians gainfully employed. While these programs will need some adjustments going forward, they will remain critically important for months to come, supporting workers and employers as we rebuild the economy.
I want to speak to a national crisis that, in the midst of this COVID-19 crisis, has taken centre stage in the Canadian conscience.
CLAC represents nearly 10,000 members working on the front lines of health care and long-term care in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. Grace Manor of Holland Christian Homes, which was one of the homes mentioned in the national media last week, is represented by CLAC. These workers are caring for our nation's seniors with amazing dedication and commitment. If you've spent time with them, you know how they love the residents and work desperately hard to care for them in such a way that keeps them comfortable and preserves their dignity.
They work in an environment that is exceedingly challenging and for money that often falls short of a living wage. The workers use every possible minute of their shift to provide hands-on care for the residents, yet the system drowns them in needless paperwork and documentation, which takes time away from the residents. The expectations and burdens of care have been steadily increasing, yet the rate of funding has steadily declined. As a result, the working conditions are so challenging that finding qualified staff is very difficult. Worker shortages are common and caregiver burnout is on the rise.
All of this betrays an appalling indifference as a society to the care of our seniors. The sector has been neglected by governments across the country for decades. In fact, CLAC, along with others, has been ringing alarm bells on this issue for over 30 years. I understand that this sector is primarily in provincial jurisdiction, but we now understand the issue as a national crisis. There's a moral imperative for all stakeholders to get together and find solutions to the crisis now. The federal government can play a helpful role in this, starting with establishing a national standard of care for our seniors. This could be achieved by a nationally orchestrated study of best practices that have resulted in superior outcomes.
With all that has been said recently, I want to take this opportunity to honour the service of the workers in this sector. We are not upset that the military released its report on the homes in Ontario. In fact, it may finally be the catalyst for meaningful change. However, for us, it is deeply distressing to see the front-line workers in long-term care shouldering the weight of public outrage when, in fact, the guilt belongs elsewhere. The workers remain the heros in this equation, and the burden is on the rest of us, starting with our political leaders, to fix it.
Lastly, I want to talk about the construction industry and work in the skilled trades. CLAC represents over 40,000 skilled tradespeople working in construction and skilled trades. Notably, CLAC represents about half of the construction and contracted maintenance workforce in Alberta's oil sands, as well as about half of the workforce building the clean energy megaproject in northern B.C., called the Site C dam. We will build much of the LNG Canada project in Kitimat, and when the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project ramps up to full activity later this year, over 60% of that workforce will be CLAC members.
We are very proud to be building much of the infrastructure in our natural resource sector, which ultimately propels the entire Canadian economy.
Through this crisis, construction activity has been an economic lifeline for many Canadians. While the majority of the economy has been shut down, governments across the country declared much of construction work essential. This affirms what we in the industry talk about as parity of esteem, which is that education in the skilled trades is as noble as any other form of education, and work in the skilled trades is as important as any other in the country.
It's important to understand that the construction workforce in Canada is comprised of three main groups: the traditional building trade unions, CLAC and other alternative unions, and the non-union or open shop. Each of these groups enjoys a significant share of the market in Canada, and just as Canadians are well served by the competition among political parties, we are also well served by the competition among the players in the construction landscape.
I say all of that because there is an important link to what comes next in the economic recovery from COVID-19. As we saw just this morning with the 's announcement regarding municipalities, a key response to stimulate economic growth and activity will be major investments in public infrastructure.
The federal government alone will spend billions of dollars on construction projects, and so will your provincial and municipal counterparts. In many cases, particularly on large projects, funding will come from multiple levels of government. In all cases, it is incumbent upon governments to ensure that this money is spent both efficiently and in such a way that it's used to the greatest benefit of the community in which it is spent. This idea has given rise to the use of community benefit agreements, a contractual tool used to ensure that these benefits are realized.
CLAC, of course, endorses the use of community benefit agreements when they are used properly. By “properly” I mean that they identify the desired community benefits and then set in place the conditions and resources necessary to achieve them without losing the benefits of fair and open competition for the work among all players in the construction industry.
Sometimes community benefit agreements are used to limit access to the work to only one group of labour. For example, the Government of British Columbia has entered a community benefit agreement with the B.C. building trade unions. This means that on designated projects paid for by all citizens of B.C., only members of the building trade unions are permitted to perform the work. The City of Toronto has done the same thing with the Ontario building trades.
Evidence suggests that where community benefit agreements are used in this restrictive way, the cost of public projects increases by 20% to 25%. Imagine 20% to 25% on the billions of dollars of infrastructure money that will be spent across this country over the next decade. This is a critically important issue. Fair and open tendering of public infrastructure, whether under the auspices of a community benefit agreement or not, is the best approach and the approach the federal government should demand of every infrastructure dollar spent on behalf of Canadians.
I will leave my opening comments at that, and I look forward to answering questions from the committee.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much for your question.
In our view, based on the evidence we have seen on public projects and public investment, there's no question that community benefits have been an incredible driver for dealing with income inequality, but equally in dealing with the diversity of those who sometimes may not have the opportunity to become part of that sector.
It's not only for the workers who might get an apprenticeship, or a woman who might get an apprenticeship, but it's also for those small businesses that are trying to leverage an opportunity to access the business at the same time as these projects are operating.
The reality, of course, is that community benefits have been an enormous driver in dealing with inequality, providing access to many workers who would not have an opportunity—especially young people, women and aboriginal people—to get an apprenticeship program and, given the duration of these projects, not only to start an apprenticeship program, but also to complete the program in the process of those investments.
I think it's critical. These are government investments and, to a large extent, we have seen, with the evidence that we've been able to look at, that workers in those communities can benefit enormously from community benefits being attached to those projects. Equally, in the places where money is invested—and this is taxpayers' money—we have seen new opportunities for people who quite often have not had that option before. It is critical to maintain a way to measure how that benefit has significantly impacted and benefited the community at large, but equally who has benefited in the community specifically.
Racialized workers, aboriginal workers and women workers are the ones to target, the ones the help should go to. It's important to get both the employer and the project management to document how the community benefit has shown progress in bringing into the sector groups that may not have had the opportunity prior to that.
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I started out by saying that certain groups of course have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic so far. We know for a fact that women are bearing most of the burden of the child-rearing responsibility. Those who have been in the workforce and who have been locked down for this entire period, of course, are struggling with that reality.
We believe that if we really want to reboot the economy, this is going to be a critical component of that rebooting. We need to make sure that parents are able to put their kids in proper care as they go back to work. If there's an absence of that, they're not going to go back to work. As I speak to you today, women are more than half of the workforce, but, equally so, families in general rely upon child care to ensure that they can all go to work. If we don't have an adequate child care component in the reopening of the economy, I think we're going to see a disproportionate re-engagement of those who are not going to get there.
We believe the child care sector is a critical part. We also know from history, in terms of the Quebec child care system, that the system actually pays for itself over time by that investment. We need to work with the provinces and with municipal governments to ensure that, as we are reopening the economy, child care is going to be a critical component. We believe the business community supports this idea.
As a matter of fact, with Goldy Hyder and the Business Council, we co-authored an article you'll see published sometime this week, calling on the federal government to work with provinces and territories, but also with municipal governments, and take steps to ensure that child care will be a critical component as we reboot the economy and, critical to that, to recognize the disproportionate responsibility that women are taking on in this recovery period. We don't want to burden them further by not having child care, and we want to make sure the funding and support are there for them going forward.
I want to thank the government for whatever they're doing. We're going to continue to push to make sure this happens as we enter into the recovery.
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The transfer payments for health care have been going on and have been the source of tension between the provinces and territories and the federal government for quite some time.
The reality here, I think, is that the provinces also have some responsibility. A lot of the underfunding has come from the provinces and territories choosing to shortchange long-term care and to not adequately fund it to the degree that could have prevented some of the deaths and more importantly, of course, the shortages in the wages the workers are paid in this sector.
I think it's critical to recognize that provinces have chosen—and I'm not here to simply excuse them—to cut taxes and reduce the amount of money they have to fund these services. At the end of the day, what we are seeing here is stuff we have been saying in the labour movement for decades. The reality is that you have staff who are inadequately paid, who have to work at three or four jobs to make ends meet, and they're working in long-term care. Many of them make just about minimum wage.
Had it not been for the federal government commitment to give a special boost to pay for these workers.... Most provinces are saying that once that funding is gone, they are not going to continue to maintain that special payment they are making to workers, even though we know these workers are highly under-represented. There is no question the federal government can increase the health transfers to the provinces, but what guarantee do we have that the provinces are going to spend it on long-term care? What commitment do we have from the provinces that they will enforce the rules to make sure the services these seniors receive are adequate?
More important, we have advocated and said that if we take the profit out of it, that means every penny you give to a long-term care facility would be invested in the long-term care facility and would not simply be siphoned off to pay shareholders. I think this is the fundamental issue if you know that most of the businesses that are operating long-term care are not doing so out of the kindness of their hearts but are doing so because they want to make money out of the service.
We think if you took the profit motivation out of our health care system, you could invest all that money to ensure the system was better off for the people who were receiving the care and make sure the workers could be paid and the staffing would be adequate to ensure this did not happen again.
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I have two answers for you, and I may be correcting myself or somebody will correct me over time.
My understanding is that the department has allowed people who are on CERB to get $1,000 from their supplementary plan. That's what they have allowed workers who are going to work and getting CERB to earn.
My understanding is, at least, that for clarity purposes, those who are getting the wage subsidy can have their supplementary plan top them up from their wage subsidy to their full salary as intended.
That should be the norm, of course. The CERB was brought in, of course, to try to streamline the process to get benefits quickly. The rules only allowed for workers to earn up to $1,000.
We've been urging the government to continue to make improvements so that workers who are paying into their supplementary plan should be able to access that. You're absolutely correct that would have been the norm if they were on employment benefits. Of course that's not fully allowed 100% if they're getting the CERB right now.
They can get up to $1,000, as we understand it, working with the department, and similarly, up to the difference between their wage subsidy and their full salary under the supplemental plan currently.
Good afternoon, honourable Chair, members of the committee, and Dominic and Ken.
My name is Jerry Dias. I'm the national president of Unifor, Canada's largest trade union in the private sector. Unifor represents 315,000 members across the country who are working in nearly every industrial sector, including health and long-term care, retail, passenger transit, food processing, utilities, logistics and many others on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is a pleasure to be addressing all of you, despite having to do so remotely. I hope you have all been managing to stay safe and healthy during these difficult times. On behalf of Unifor, I sincerely appreciate the invitation to share our views on the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I hope what I share here will go some way towards advancing this committee's work.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented public health and economic crisis that is being felt across the entire globe. There have been 5.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, with approximately 360,000 deaths, including nearly 7,000 here in Canada. With 7,000 Canadian lives lost and families in mourning, losses of this magnitude are simply beyond comprehension.
Unifor is proud to be a Canadian union. Every inch of our organization is dedicated to ensuring that the livelihoods, jobs and health of workers in Canada are protected. From our vantage point, the crisis has revealed many of the underlying flaws and weaknesses in our country's labour market institutions.
For example, early on in this crisis, it became blindingly clear that our unemployment insurance wasn't going to cut it. Decades of cutbacks and terrible rule changes all but guaranteed that this vital program wasn't equipped to deal with a sharp increase in unemployment.
For one, the system simply couldn't handle the flood of claims as workers were laid off in the millions, but more than that, many workers just simply didn't qualify. On a good day, less than half of unemployed Canadians actually qualify—42%, to be exact—for an insurance system they all pay into. If you can imagine it, those with low incomes, including the precariously employed, benefit less from the program than those who are financially well off.
EI has become a needlessly complicated program that punishes workers for being unemployed, denying them benefits, clawing back earnings and replacing only a small amount for them to live on. Then a crisis like this hits and the systems seizes. To their credit, the federal government quickly realized that they had to change tack. They created the Canada emergency response benefit program. The CERB is a simpler program to administer and provides income support to far more workers in need than EI would have. Still, the gaps remain.
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke to the House finance committee and shared my frustration that hundreds of thousands of workers are denied supplementary unemployment benefits under the CERB. This is money set aside by employers that would normally top up unemployment benefits, but which cannot be paid out under the current rules of the CERB program.
To call this restriction absurd would be an understatement. Unifor has launched a national campaign to fix it. I strongly encourage this committee to join us in calling on ministers and to address this loophole in the CERB program. This is the immediate challenge.
The bigger challenge is that of developing a more inclusive, equitable and responsive EI system once and for all, an EI system that is one part of a basic guaranteed floor of income support for those in need. Over the coming months, our EI system will once again be tested. Millions will see CERB claims expire and will look to re-enter the EI rolls. Many won't be eligible. We need to make immediate changes to the EI program to ensure CERB claimants aren't left to fend for themselves. If we don't do this, we risk a second wave of economic panic as people find it impossible to make ends meet and then default on their bills. This is not something the economy can handle at this time, especially as provinces continue to ramp up their reopening efforts.
The Canada emergency wage subsidy is another important tool to help bring workers back onto payrolls. However, recent reports indicate that only 10% of the $76 billion set aside for the program has been spent. Clearly, employers have been reluctant to apply for the program, which we also know anecdotally from the experiences of our own members. Some of the large employers we negotiate with have been dragging their feet on applying for the wage subsidy. In other cases, however, the program simply does not provide enough of an incentive for employers to apply.
By the time applications opened in late April, many employers had already laid off workers by the hundreds of thousands. It was simply too late. Now employers are looking at the cost of bringing workers back under the subsidy and wondering why they should pay health insurance premiums, pension contributions and payroll taxes out of pocket just to keep workers on paid leave.
There have also been problems with eligibility. Employers in the broader public sector, including our members in universities, colleges and municipal transit authorities, are not eligible even though they have expressed interest in the program. Finance Canada recently issued a call for feedback on the program, and Unifor has urged the government to revamp the program by expanding eligibility and covering workers' health insurance premiums and other non-taxable contributions.
All told, our income security policies in Canada need a major rethink. This obviously includes EI and the wage subsidy program, but our understanding of income insecurity has to extend well beyond that. This crisis has shone a spotlight on the low pay and increasingly precarious working conditions many workers have been forced to bear over the last few decades. It has also brought into clear view the gendered pay divisions of care and service work and how deeply undervalued this work is.
Unifor would like to see continued progress on implementing deep and lasting labour law standards reform, including a new federal minimum wage of at least $15 an hour and permanent paid sick days amongst other changes. The provinces must follow suit.
We recognize too that income security has as much to do with employment as it does with other affordability issues such as housing and rent, transit and mobility, drug coverage and child care. These matter as much to a seamless economic restart plan today as they do to a developing vision for a better, fairer Canada tomorrow. This is not a time for Canada to think small. This is a time to bring our best ideas to the table, ideas such as universal pharmacare, universal child care, a four-day work week, ideas like these that enable us to reverse course on rising job market precariousness. These are ideas that Unifor will be raising in more detail over the coming weeks as we unveil a comprehensive framework for Canada's economic recovery.
If anything, this pandemic has shown us that lack of government investments and dependency on global markets for essential goods and services can only backfire during a time of crisis. Whether it is for PPE, food or critical products like zero-emission vehicles, we need to rebuild our domestic supply chain strategically to strengthen the economy, protect the environment and stabilize jobs. This means a more active, dynamic and engaged government, a government working in the public interest, a government that is willing to be an active economic player, one that is ready to roll up its sleeves and chart a path to generate economic activity and good jobs, and not simply slash taxes, sign terrible trade deals and then hope that private industry comes to the pump.
Workers in Canada deserve better than that. Let's use this crisis as an opportunity to change how we approach industrial development, one that puts workers in Canada first. Unifor stands ready to help.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
:
Recently, on Quebec's North Shore, there was the situation of Cliffs Resources, a company that went bankrupt and left many of our retirees without drug coverage, but more importantly, with a truncated pension. I can tell you that when a retiree has their pension cut by more than 20%, their life changes a lot.
In the 2018 federal budget, the government said, “All Canadians deserve more peace of mind when it comes to their retirement and companies must act in good faith towards their employees”. I believe that good faith on the part of corporations alone is not enough. I think the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act should be changed. I'll explain.
It's true now more than ever—we know that there are companies that are at financial risk because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are going to be bankruptcies. Because of the financial shock and the underfunding of some pension plans, we are concerned about the pensions negotiated over time for Canadian workers, but especially for retirees. More than ever, this highlights the need for reform of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to protect the pensions and benefits of Canadian workers.
Very often, the interests of workers and retirees come last, after those of banks, insurance companies, municipalities, and even school boards. We are not asking to be the first on the list of creditors in the event of bankruptcy, we certainly do not want to hinder the possible recovery of a business that would come under the protection of the law, but we still want the opportunity to be considered before the banks, before the insurance companies, before the municipalities and before the school boards.
Real people, who have to feed themselves, pay their rent and take care of themselves, have to come before the banks. When an 85-year-old pensioner, for example, learns that his pension is going to be cut by 20% or 21%, it's very difficult to adjust. It would be much easier for Canada's major banks, insurance companies, municipalities, and even school boards to get through the situation with a loss rather than penalizing retirees.
In the last session of Parliament, the United Steelworkers supported two private members' bills and one Senate bill that would do just that. As a result, the House has already had a chance to debate but not vote on these bills. We hope that you will finally move forward, given the need to reform this legislation to protect Canadian pensioners.
The second point I would like to discuss with you more specifically concerns tourism, hotels and restaurants. I would like to draw your attention to the plight of workers in this industry.
In Quebec, the United Steelworkers represent nearly 4,000 workers in the hotel and restaurant sector, 90% of whom have lost their jobs. For the moment, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit has helped workers in emergency situations, but you know that experts predict that it will take between 18 and 24 months before this sector recovers. This is an industry that was already experiencing severe labour shortages. We must support workers in this industry so that it can rely on a skilled workforce during the restart, and workers must be there in sufficient numbers when the industry recovers.
It is often during the summer that people accumulate hours to qualify for employment insurance benefits and receive these benefits in the off-peak periods. This summer, there will be no international tourism in Canada. There will be no cruise ships. There will be no weddings. In many cases, workers will not be able to work enough hours to be able to reapply for employment insurance. This year, it will be an off-season for a large majority of hotel and restaurant workers.
What happens at the end of the CERB? We need to think now about what will happen when the CERB is over. I think there are two options: extending CERB or changing the qualifying period for employment insurance benefits.
I know you're currently considering the situation of those who work in fisheries. We think the same protections should be extended to those in the hotel and restaurant sector. This is important to think about. What will happen to the tourism and restaurant industry without those workers?
I'm sure you'll have the best interests of workers at heart as you look for ways to emerge from the crisis.
For our witnesses today, I have the privilege of asking these questions from Saint John, New Brunswick, which has a very strong labour movement and a history of union activism.
Mr. Dias, I want to thank you for joining us today to share your thoughts, insights, expertise and, of course, the questions and concerns of the 315,000 Unifor members across this country. I have the privilege of working with Unifor leadership like Erin Howell Sharpe, Adam Costain, Trevor Young, Grant Charlton, Tamara Davidson-Kelly, Tammy Moore, Martin Melanson and Tom Clarkson.
I'm not here to take potshots at unions. I'm not here to attack unions. I have questions for you.
Mr. Dias, here's my first question. During your appearance before the finance committee on May 21, you noted that provincial governments across the country have undermined several hard-won labour law reforms in recent years, including the right to paid sick leave. Last week, the announced that our federal government will work with provincial and territorial governments in order to ensure that all workers in Canada have access to at least 10 paid sick days in the course of a year should they need them.
How would you and your members like to see federal and provincial governments approach this issue?
I'd like to start by welcoming the representatives of the leading labour organizations we met with today, including Unifor, the United Steelworkers and the Canadian Labour Congress. I want to make a quick comment. I don't think any economic recovery or endeavour aimed at helping society is possible without the support of the major unions. Thank you for your contribution.
I wasn't too amused by the Conservatives' questions, so I hope it doesn't happen again. I can ask you all of my questions.
Today, when the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic was meeting, I asked, not once, but three times, whether the CERB was going to be extended. I think that's important. Not all businesses are going to open up again, and not all employees are going to return to their old jobs. Some businesses will take a while to get going again.
We talked about the tourism, hospitality and hotel sectors. If I understood correctly, that's a key issue for you, as well, as is a comprehensive review of the employment insurance program going forward.
Would anyone care to comment?
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I'll give you a concrete example. Let's say a business goes bankrupt with a $10-million deficit in pension fund obligations. Banks would be paid before workers, as would insurance companies, municipalities and school boards. If 500 people were already retired, that would mean they would lose up to 20% of their pension benefits, which is a lot to them.
Consider an 88-year-old retiree who receives a small annuity of $800 from her pension fund. If the company goes bankrupt, that retiree could lose $200 of her $800 annuity every month. That would be devastating to her. She can't get that money back, unlike banks. No Canadian bank, insurance company or municipality would be at risk of going bankrupt because it couldn't recover a missing $10 million from a pension fund.
Let's use the example of Mabe, an appliance company in Montreal that went under. The employees lost a big chunk of their pensions. It's not true that the city of Montreal would have gone bankrupt had it been paid after the pensioners or school boards.
What we are asking for is protection for those pensioners. They are often among the least fortunate in society, especially those who are older. They aren't able to start over and rejoin the workforce to earn a bit of money so they can make ends meet. As we see it, that protection is paramount.
The idea is not to hurt companies who file for protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. On the contrary, we want to contribute to their recovery. Banks, however, rake in $10 billion in profits every year. It makes no sense for banks, insurance companies, municipalities and school boards to be paid before pensioners. We are asking that pensioners be given higher priority on the list of creditors. We aren't saying that they should be first on the list, but they should be ahead of banks and big insurance companies.
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Yes, that was a recent announcement.
Let me just begin by saying that I apologize that the microphone didn't work for the translation.
I submitted my submission and comments. I hope you had a chance to review them.
We're no different from Unifor. We're in the same situation.
We go to the bargaining table, and we set aside this money, the SUB plans, that we've been encouraged to negotiate. That money has been there. It's been there collectively. It's no different when we negotiate pension plans. That's money that comes out of the package and that is put there for the workers to use when they are in need.
We can't think of a time of greater need than now.
We had early indications that the government was going to allow the SUB to go through, but obviously that's gone sideways on us. I think as Jerry just said, the $1,000 doesn't really get you to what you need if you're in that higher-wage income, if you're a tradesman. We have it in the steel industry and whatnot. We're in the same boat.
It's a ridiculous thing. The government can fix it and they need to fix it. One thousand dollars just doesn't do it.
When there was a commitment initially that they would use the SUB funds.
Those are funds that everybody, in good faith, went to the bargaining table and signed on the dotted line for so they would be there for the benefit of workers when required.