Q & A’s on Bill C-316
Mr. Richard Harris (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC) moved that Bill C-316, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (incarceration), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Bill C-316. Second reading
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to move Bill C-316, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act referring to incarceration.
Simply put, the bill would ensure that a convicted criminal would not have preferential access to EI benefits compared to law-abiding Canadians. The bill would remove the extension to the qualifying period and the benefit period under the employment insurance program that is currently equal to a time a convict spends in prison.
As we speak, convicted felons have the ability to extend their qualifying and benefit periods up to a maximum period of 104 weeks as opposed to 52 weeks for a law-abiding citizen who is out of work. People out there do not know this. It is a section of the Employment Insurance Act that must be changed. Given these extensions are not available to law-abiding claimants who are actively looking for work, this is simply not fair. Bill C-316 would remove the extension of the qualification and benefit period for the time someone spends in jail.
The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development has indicated that the government would like to move two friendly amendments, and I certainly support these amendments.
The first amendment would ensure that my bill would only remove the extension of qualification and the benefit periods for individuals who have actually been convicted of a crime and are in jail. To my friends across the way, this would ensure that individuals held in pre-trial custody but who are subsequently found innocent would not be affected by this bill.
The second amendment would have the bill coming into force on a Sunday. This would align the implementation date of the bill with the employment insurance calendar, which works in two-week increments starting on a Sunday.
I will quickly reflect on how the current employment insurance system works and what motivated me to move the bill.
Currently, when an individual applies for employment insurance they are evaluated as to whether or not they have worked enough hours in the qualifying period to receive benefits. The standard qualifying period is 52 weeks in length. The qualifying period can only be extended under four circumstances under the act and only to a maximum of 104 weeks. I will read them to give some context as to why I feel the exemption related to prison must be removed.
The first extension for being incapable of work is because of prescribed illness, injury, quarantine, or pregnancy.
The second extension is being confined in jail, a penitentiary, or a similar institution.
The third applies if one receives some assistance under employment benefits, such as a plan from one's previous employer.
The fourth relates to receiving payments under a provincial law on the basis of having ceased to work because continuing to work could result in danger to an unborn child or a child for whom a woman might be breastfeeding.
It is the second provision related to jail that I am seeking to amend because it relates to circumstances under the control of the individual. I will provide an example of how the exemption works.
Under our current legislation, a convicted criminal could be in jail for one year, come out of jail, apply for EI, and the hours worked in the last two years would be considered qualification for employment insurance. A law-abiding citizen who applied at the same time would only be able to count the hours worked in the last year. In other words, a convicted criminal who spent a year in jail would have 104 weeks to apply for a 52-week qualification period. It is as if the prison time simply did not count. However, a person who took a year off for family reasons or to pursue some other interest would only have a 52-week period. This is not fair.
Mr. Richard Harris: Madam Speaker, I thought I was quite clear about who this bill targets. It targets individuals who have committed crimes and are convicted and sent to jail. People in preventive custody are not the same. That is the difference. If people are arrested for committing crimes, detained until trial, subsequently go to court and are found innocent, it does not affect them. It would not apply to people in institutions for health reasons, which are not jails or prisons.
I thought I was quite clear about that, but I can assure the hon. member that this is specifically targeted at convicted felons who are in jail and receiving preferential EI treatment because they went to jail.
I ask the question. Should a convicted felon found guilty to have wilfully committed a criminal act be given preferential access to employment insurance benefits simply for being confined to a jail? I can say that members on this side of the House say a resounding no, that should not happen. As I said, any clear-thinking Canadian would come up with the same response: no.
Therefore, I ask my colleagues in this place to support this bill in principle and pass it at second reading because it is the right thing to do. Who in the House can successfully argue that someone who has wilfully committed a crime and gone to jail should all of a sudden be eligible for preferential treatment under the EI program? Who can successfully argue that? I suggest no one can. I am afraid, given the NDP's soft on crime ideology, that there will be some arguments, but it is beyond me how it will be able to justify that.
I am sure that people watching this at home tonight are thinking they never knew that people who go to jail because they have committed crimes would have preferential treatment. How could that possibly happen? It happened years ago when the Employment Insurance Act was written. I do not know what government it was under, but somehow the provision was put in that allowed for this. I ask my colleagues in this place to support this bill at second reading. It is a good bill. It is a bill that needs to be passed to clean up that portion of the act that is simply not fair.
Our government has clearly shown that it cares about people who go through hard times because they lose their jobs, but we have expanded the access to Canadians who have found themselves in that position. It is only right for a caring government to do that. This government does care about working Canadians and their ability to provide for their families through their jobs. We will always be there for Canadians, but we must not allow people who wilfully put themselves in positions where they are convicted of crimes and go to jail or wilfully get fired from their jobs to have preferential treatment over people who are hard working and lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
A similar situation could occur with the benefits period. Typically, an individual can only receive regular employment insurance benefits for 52 weeks after the date of applying. There is an exemption if someone has been in jail or prison, like I just mentioned. Someone coming out of prison would be allowed an extension of 104 weeks in which he or she could take employment benefits. It would be as if the 52 weeks spent in jail did not happen and he or she is starting on 52 weeks. That is not fair.
It is particularly unfair because any regular EI benefits that a law-abiding citizen applies for but does not take within 52 weeks of filing disappears once that 52 week period expires. This is in contrast to a convicted felon who could collect benefits for up to 104 weeks after making a claim depending on the time spent in prison.
This is all in contrast to the law-abiding citizen who started receiving the same length of benefits as the convicted criminal. The law-abiding citizen would lose his or her benefits while the convicted criminal would retain his or her benefits because of being in prison. It is just not fair.
Someone convicted of a crime should not receive preferential access to employment insurance benefits. Individuals choose to commit crimes. Why should those individuals receive preferential treatment over a law-abiding citizen who chooses to take time off and as a result would lose the benefit period? It is simply not fair.
It is one thing if someone is unable to work because of sickness. It is another matter entirely if someone convicted of a crime has greater access. That is the basis of my bill. The individual chose to break the law.
To be clear, this is not about punishing criminals further. Our justice legislation is clear about what the punishment for crime should be, and thanks to a strong, stable, national Conservative majority government what the punishment will be.
The bill is about ensuring that convicted felons are forced to live by the same rules as law-abiding citizens. What Canadian would agree that a convicted felon should receive preferential treatment with regard to employment insurance benefits? No right-thinking Canadian would support that for a second.
Someone choosing to break the law and losing a job because of it is no different than someone being fired for just cause, because that individual chose to act in some way that ended the employment, whether a crime was committed and the individual was sent to jail, or whether some other offence was committed on the job and that caused the firing. The individual made a choice, and that individual should not receive preferential EI benefits over a hard-working, law-abiding Canadian who loses a job through no fault of his or her own making. It should not happen, and that is the purpose of my bill.
The bill is about fundamental fairness when it comes to accessing employment insurance benefits. Canada probably has the most generous and most helpful employment insurance programs than any other country in the world. We only have to look at the last couple of years when we were going through the recession. One only has to look at the bills our government brought in, the extended work benefits bill, the job sharing bill. We have done everything we can, something unheard of in most other countries. This government believes in fairness. We are being fair to the law-abiding people who work in this country. As I said before, the issue is fairness.
Mr. Richard Harris: Madam Speaker, I thought I just dealt with a situation like that. If someone is being held in custody pending trial, they are not yet a convicted felon, therefore it would not apply to them.
That is why the government put these friendly amendments forward, which I support. It was to take care of a situation like that.
It has to be clear, and I will say it again, getting rid of this extension, this preferential treatment, applies only to someone who is a convicted felon who goes to jail.
Mr. Richard Harris: Madam Speaker, it is not hard to get passionate about fairness or passionate about correcting an unfairness, which is the case now.
As I pointed out earlier, this is about someone who wilfully commits a crime, goes to court, is convicted, is sent to jail and has preferential EI benefit treatment, as opposed to someone who works very hard providing for their family, is a law-abiding Canadian and for reasons of their own they want to take some time off to spend with their family or pursue another interest , but does not get the same treatment as someone who has been in jail. They would lose their benefits for that period. For someone who is in jail it is like a period in time that never happened. They are eligible immediately.
Mr. Richard Harris (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC): Madam Speaker, as I mentioned, this bill is about fairness. It is about removing a preferential benefit that is supplied under the EI Act now to people who spend a year or less in prison. It allows people to have an extended benefit after being released from prison, which is not offered to law-abiding citizens who, through no fault of their own, lose their jobs or make a choice to take time off work.
There was some concern by hon. colleague across the way about people being released from incarceration losing the money that EI would provide under this preferential treatment. The fact is, as my colleague pointed out, there is a great deal of help offered through the corrections system federally, halfway houses and organizations that help people previously incarcerated get jobs and get back into society.
Those things are available, but this bill is not about them. It is about removing a preferential EI benefit provision that applies to people who have committed crimes and are incarcerated for a year or less. That does not apply to average, hard-working Canadians who take time off their jobs to pursue other interests. They lose that benefit period and people who go to jail do not lose it. That is unfair and we want it removed from the act.
I ask my colleagues across the way to gain a real understanding of this bill and the unfairness of that EI provision.
