Seasonal Industries Archives | Elizabeth May

Economic Action Plan 2013 (Bill C-60)

Justin Reist — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:44:04 +0000

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, the cuts and the changes to employment insurance would actually hurt jobs in the tourism sector for sure, as well as probably the fisheries, and since our hon. colleagues on the other side of the House do not understand the life in seasonal communities such as those in Atlantic Canada or in British Columbia in the tourism sector, let me ask all of us here to consider the House of Commons operations.

Do my hon. colleagues here know that the restaurant staff get laid off when we go back to our ridings for Christmas, and are later hired back? They will not be able to find a job. What employer wants to hire someone for two weeks or three weeks, knowing that staff who have been working in the parliamentary dining room for multiple years are expected back to work as soon as we come back?

The system was designed around—

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bruce Stanton): Order, please.

We are really running out of time.

The hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.

Yvon Godin: Mr. Speaker, maybe I will have a little surprise for the member here.

I like her question. Maybe she does not know that in the employment insurance rules, they are not allowed to say they work in the parliamentary restaurant. A woman is not allowed to say she is pregnant, because that would damage her chances to get a job. They are not allowed to say they are driving a school bus, because that would stop them from having a job. They have to lie to the employer. That is in the employment insurance rules—and the Conservatives say they are there to protect the employees, the workers?

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Business of Supply – Opposition Motion—Employment Insurance

Craig Cantin — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:50:56 +0000

That this House call on the Conservative government to abandon plans to further restrict access to Employment Insurance for Canadian workers who have followed the rules and who will now be forced to choose between taking a pay cut of up to 30% or losing their Employment Insurance benefits.

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from St. John’s South—Mount Pearl for a very clear description of the different worlds that exist within one country. Canada is one country, and we all love it. I am grateful that yesterday the hon. member for Calgary Centre reminded us of that.

I hear Conservative members of Parliament talk about how employees are not looking hard enough for work, even though we know that they do. However, I want to focus the question on the employers.

In seasonal industries, the employers have benefited from EI. They need the system. It can be fixed, it can be tweaked, and things can be done, but essentially, when employers lay off employees at the end of a summer season, whether the employers are in fisheries, forestry, tourism or mining, they want to know those people are willing to come back to them for the same jobs they held before they were laid off.

This is an employer benefit, and I am going to ask the hon. member if he thinks the government has given sufficient concern to employers’ dependence on this system.

Ryan Cleary: Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. I have spoken with employers since these proposed changes were announced, and employers in seasonal industries such as those the hon. member mentioned—tourism or the fishery, for example—are concerned that the EI changes are going to cause them to lose skilled workers. Yes, they are seasonal workers and do not work 52 weeks of the year, but in the fish plants, the tourism industry, the crafts industry and so on, we are talking about a skill set that could be lost because the workers will have to move away as a result of the changes in the EI regulations.

That is a very good question. Employers are very concerned.

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Assault on Seasonal Industries in C-38

Craig Cantin — Thu, 24 May 2012 21:00:23 +0000

The Harper Conservatives’ proposed changes to Employment Insurance appear to be fundamental and are not discussed in the budget. Rhetoric in the House of Commons by the Conservatives seems to suggest that the system is currently unfair to employers and that there are “repeat users” of employment insurance. The Harper Conservatives utterly fail to understand the dynamics of seasonal industries.

“The main beneficiaries of the current employment insurance rules are not the workers that Conservative rhetoric seeks to demonize, suggesting that something is wrong with ‘repeat users’, but rather the employers in forestry, fisheries and tourism industries,” said Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands. “I remember well Frank Dottori when he was CEO of Tembec, expressing the reality that the forestry industry is able to lay off workers for seasonal downturns and know that their workforce will be available to them – trained, willing and able – to work the moment they are needed. The same is true of the fishing industry and tourism.”

“These changes appear to take aim at the seasonal industries and more remote communities where jobs simply do not exist out of season. If the Harper Conservatives wish to shut down seasonal industries, they ought to start by informing the employers rather than targeting the workers,” said May.

Elizabeth May worked in a family-run tourism business on the Cabot Trail from 1974 to 1983. She received unemployment insurance in the off seasons (1975 to 1980) as did other employees of the business. Ms. May’s father always calculated the total tax paid by their seasonal restaurant and gift shop and the tax paid always exceeded, by a good margin, the amount paid out in employment insurance to a staff of 30 seasonal workers.

“The proposed EI changes must be revised for C-38 to be properly examined,” said Ms. May.

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