The federal leaders are heading to Montreal to prepare for the first of two French language debates on Thursday night. But they all had enough time today to try to get voters’ attention with more election promises. By the end of the day one common theme emerged centred on Employment Insurance. It’s not a grabby issue unless you know someone who’s out of work and in August the unemployment rate was up two points to 7 per cent.
Stephen Harper was in Winnipeg where he promised the Conservatives would create 1.3 million new jobs by 2020. He said one way to get those new jobs into the economy would be cutting employment insurance premiums by 39 cents for every $100 earned. The cuts go further than the Conservative platform in 2011, which promised “a one year EI break for some 525,000 businesses” and a freeze on EI premiums for two years.
The Harper strategy day in and day out is to promote his plan that lower taxes along with targeted tax credits can provide enough economic stimuli to get the Canadian economy growing. According to Harper lowering EI premiums would put more money into the economy. Is the 1.3 million job target realistic? “We've consulted experts on whether this is reasonable,” he said.
While Harper was promising job creation, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair was in New Brunswick talking about the inequities of the EI program. The NDP EI plan in 2011 was quite specific. Among other things that platform promised to eliminate the two-week waiting period for EI, return the qualifying period to a minimum of 360 hours of work and raise benefits to 60 per cent of the best 12 weeks in the qualifying period.
Today Mulcair said the NDP would hold the EI premium rate at its current level and use the money to better help unemployed Canadians. Mulcair said Canadians should get the payments that they paid for and he said only 40 per cent of Canadians applying for EI actually get benefits. He promised stable benefits for workers including seasonal workers and young workers. The NDP would also extend parental leave by five weeks. Mulcair said maintaining the EI rates will protect workers and will not equate to a tax increase as the Conservatives charge. Mulcair attacked both Harper and Trudeau on their use of the EI “piggy bank” to balance the books. “Harper has the wrong priorities and Trudeau has no priorities,” he said.
Justin Trudeau is already in Montreal. His promise focused on more money for arts and culture across Canada. The money would go to national arts institutions including the CBC, the Canada Arts Council and Telefilm. When it came time for questions from reporters EI came up and it was Trudeau’s turn to reach for the middle ground between Mulcair and Harper. Trudeau promised the Liberals would lower the EI premium but less than Harper. “Mulcair announced today he is going to maintain EI premiums at the high level that Mr. Harper brought them to," Trudeau said. Trudeau added that the Liberal plan makes “EI respond better to the needs of Canadians while still reducing premiums is what Canadians expect from their employment insurance program.”
In 2011, the Liberal platform promised small and medium size businesses “a 100 percent Employment Insurance holiday for every Canadian youth age 18 to 25 that they hire.” The 2015 promises include a commitment to reduce the wait period to one week from two and promises to “stop the discrimination that makes it harder for some of Canada’s most precarious workers – including parents returning to the workforce, younger workers, people who have left the workforce due to illness, and new Canadians – from accessing the benefits that help them get back into the workforce.”
I am not about to bet that Employment Insurance will be the top item at the French debate. This will be the one debate in the campaign that includes all five leaders of Canada’s federal parties. The top three will be joined by Green Party leader, Elizabeth May and Bloc Quebecois leader, Gilles Duceppe.
