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May 28, 2013 - No. 65
The Crown in Parliament Generates
More Disequilibrium in Canada
• The Crown in
Parliament Generates More Disequilibrium in Canada
- K.C.
Adams
Matane Fish Plant
Workers in Gaspésie Forced to Refund EI Benefits
• Harper Government Eliminating Discretion of
EI Staff to Consider Concrete Employment Situation in Regions
- Pierre Chénier
• Communications between Unions, Defence
Organizations and Lawyers and EI Officials No Longer Possible
• Number of Workers Receiving EI Keeps Falling
The Crown in Parliament Generates
More Disequilibrium in Canada
- K.C. Adams -
Parliamentary Discussion on Implementation of Omnibus
Budget Bill C-60 with TML
Comments in Double Parentheses
Bill C-60 includes amendments to the Financial
Administration Act. Specifically discussed are "The Omnibus Budget
Implementation Bill Measures for Crown Corporations Negotiations."
***
((Excerpts from Hansard, May 7, 2013.))
Mr.
Pierre Poilievre (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport,
Infrastructure and Communities and for the Federal Economic Development
Agency for Southern Ontario, CPC):
 Mr. Speaker, let us speak
of kings
and queens and crowns. At the culmination of the Glorious Revolution in
1689, the British Parliament allowed William III and Mary II to ascend
to the throne, but there was a catch: they would need to accept the
convention of the right and the Bill of Rights, which established
Parliament as the ruling power of Britain. It would become the mother
of all parliaments, including our own.
While an imperfect document, some of the principles of
the Bill of Rights live on to this day. One of them would later be
described as no taxation without representation or, in the words of the
Bill of Rights itself, that "levying money for or to the use of the
Crown...without grant of Parliament...is illegal". Simply
put, the Crown can only spend the people's money with their consent,
and only Parliament can grant that consent.
Three hundred and twenty-four years later, the principle
is the same. Government cannot spend what Parliament has not approved,
which brings us to the Crown, or crown corporations.
Under present rules, they may enter into a room with a
union leader, negotiate an agreement and send the bill to taxpayers,
who do not have a say but must pay. The people's servants in Parliament
do not vote on it, nor does the elected government sign off, so in this
respect it is as though we have returned to
the mid-17th century, when the Crown levied money without grant of
Parliament.
((Poilievre begins by describing past battles for rights
to defeat current battles for rights. The economic base, social class
character and politics of 1689 England have been completely transformed
there and in Canada. Worldwide, petty production of the previous era
has been overwhelmed with industrial mass
production out of which has emerged the modern proletariat, the most
advanced and numerous social class with rights that reflect its modern
character and indispensable role within the socialized economy. The
working class is in battle with owners of capital and their government
representatives to defend its rights
including its right to negotiate its claim on the value it produces and
the services it provides.
The Harper government representing the private interests
of owners of monopoly capital want to deprive workers of their right to
negotiate their claim on the value they produce and services they
deliver, and their working conditions. Poilievre begins his attack on
the rights of the working class with a gross falsification
of the origin of value within the Crown Corporations on which the
public sector working class makes its claim. The origin of this value
is mostly found in the work itself undertaken by the workers of the
Crown Corporations. The origin of value claimed by the public sector
workers is mostly found in their work
and not from "levying money for or to the use of the Crown."
 In contrast, Poilievre's
claim for a salary and that of Harper and other colleagues in the House
and Senate come from "levying money for or to the use of the Crown."
That is not the case for the vast majority of public sector workers
including those of Canada Post, whom Poilievre singles out for abuse in
a gross
distortion of the reality. He suggests the Post Office and its workers
do not produce value and do not contribute to the economy and the
public treasury. He says Canada Post and its workers and other public
sector workers are a drain on the public treasury and therefore should
not have the right to negotiate their
claim on the value they produce or on their working conditions.
Poilievre is backward and wrong both on the issue of the origin of
value and on the right of workers to bargain their claims regardless of
what owners of capital may believe is the origin of value.
Piolievre is using the words of the English seventeenth
century Bill of Rights to justify granting himself and his fellow
Parliamentarians the right to decide their claim on the public treasury
for the work they do. As members of Parliament, they levy money and
grant its use for themselves as salaries and expenses.
Poilievre and his colleagues consider this right to decide their claim
a privilege of those in Parliament, not a right of all who work. But
rights are determined within the historical material conditions and any
social force that denies those rights does so at its peril.
 The tumultuous period of
seventeenth century England
found an insurgent people demanding their rights and determined to
solve the political and social problems of that time in history. The
Crown asserted its right of absolute power to deprive the people of
their rights. The insurgent people subsequently deprived
the Crown of the power to deprive the people of their rights.
The Crown in Parliament today is perpetrating conditions
of disequilibrium by depriving the working class of its rights. Under
the hoax that workers' rights are in contradiction with the seventeenth
century English Bill of Rights, the Harper dictatorship has justified
bringing forth legislation to deprive the working
class in Crown Corporations of the right to bargain and negotiate its
claim on the value it produces and services it provides. This
legislation is contrary to twenty-first century conditions and modern
definitions of rights and is unacceptable. Harper and his flunkies are
preparing for a clash with the working class on
the question of modern rights.
The Harperites are using
their hold on the state authority to deprive workers of their rights.
This brings workers into a direct clash with the Crown in Parliament.
 Similarly, but not the same
as the insurgent people of
seventeenth century England, the Canadian working class of the
twenty-first century is determined to defend its rights and have those
rights enshrined and guaranteed by the state authority. Responding to
the retrogressive actions of the Harper dictatorship,
this requires depriving the federal and other governments across Canada
of the power to deprive the working class of its rights.
Canadians are asking Harper and others of his ilk in
government to reflect seriously on whether they want to face similar
disequilibrium that the Crown faced from an insurgent people in
seventeenth century England or whether they should back off from such a
fight. Harper's actions with legislation such as Omnibus
Bill C-60 indicate that he is willing to take the risk of
disequilibrium. TML is convinced the Canadian working class
and its allies are up to the challenge.))
((To be continued -- Contrary to the ravings of
Poilievre, workers at Canada Post produce the value from which they
make their claims. They have the modern right to an organized and
effective say regarding their claims on the value they produce and for
working conditions suitable to themselves, as do all public
and private sector workers.))
Matane Fish Plant Workers in
Gaspésie Forced to Refund EI Benefits
Harper Government Eliminating Discretion of
EI Staff to
Consider Concrete Employment
Situation in Regions
- Pierre Chénier -
 In April, 120 workers at
the seafood processing plant Fruits de mer de
l'Est du Québec in Matane, Gaspésie, were dealt a severe
blow by the
Harper government with its anti-social changes to the Employment
Insurance (EI) regime. Workers must
pay attention to what this attack reveals in terms of the direction of
the anti-social offensive.
For 17 years these Matane workers have had an
arrangement with the EI
regional office and the company according to which they worked seven
days in a row and were off on EI the week after. Instead of having half
of these workers laid off and the rest working more hours, the hours
were split
between more workers and the loss of income was partly compensated for
by
EI benefits. This was a work sharing arrangement common in regions of
higher unemployment and there are still a lot of places where that kind
of arrangement still exists. These arrangements were authorized
by the employers and the
regional EI offices and reduced to some extent the number of workers
who did not have a job. The EI staff exercised their discretion in
addressing definite concrete conditions in the regions where they
operated. Such has been the arrangement in Matane for the last 17 years.
The EI investigators in the region recently ruled that
this arrangement was illegal under the Employment Insurance Act.
They
have
abolished
it,
the immediate result being the lay off of 50 of
these workers and 80 of these workers have been ordered to refund their
last two years of EI benefits, an
amount that could reach $14,000.
The EI investigators deny that the workers who worked
seven days in
a row and were off the next week were part of an arrangement that
was a form of work sharing in an area of high unemployment. They argue
the second week was merely "time off to recuperate after working seven
days in a row. Anti-Human
Resources Minister Diane Finley said in Parliament that if the workers
disagree with the ruling they can file an appeal with the EI appeal
system, showing total disregard for the workers who have lost their
jobs in a region plagued by high unemployment and with very little
economic activity besides seasonal work.
Clearly it never entered her mind that her government
has any
responsibility to provide jobs to the workers of these regions. She
also neglected to mention the changes her government made to EI include
a new appeal process that has been unanimously denounced by workers and
the defence organizations of
the unemployed as a means to rubber stamp EI cutbacks. She went so far
as to say that there is an investigation going on which shows that
fraudulent claims were made in Matane which amount to hundreds of
thousands of dollars being stolen from the EI regime. This from a
government which with the previous
Liberal government "legally" took $57 billion of "surplus" from the EI
fund (the "surplus" itself resulted from drastic cutbacks in EI
benefits) to service Canada's debt to the financial oligarchs.
Workers cannot agree that the Matane workers did
anything illegal or
were involved in something illegal when they entered into this
arrangement that was based on an understanding among the employer, the
EI
regional office and the workers themselves that the EI regime was about
mitigating the problem of
unemployment and its devastating impact on the lives of workers and
communities. They based themselves on an interpretation of the Employment
Insurance
Act that was not challenged at the time, meaning that
these arrangements were considered acceptable work sharing agreements.
Now the Harper government is using anything it can think
of to cut
off benefits to EI recipients. When it finds something in the Act that
serves this purpose, it does so, as in the case of the Matane workers
where the EI investigators argue that the workers received benefits to
recuperate when everybody knows
that these arrangements had nothing to do with taking time off to rest
and everything to do with unemployment.
 When the Act does not fully serve
the aim of stepping up
the
cutbacks to EI benefits, then the government changes the law. That is
what it just did in a most sneaky way when it removed categories of
what constitutes unsuitable employment for EI beneficiaries from the
law and moved them to the regulations
and made them much more draconian for the workers. Now these
regulations, besides being anti-worker to the core, can be changed at
will by the Minister without the assent of Parliament.
The Harper government’s scandalous decision against the
Matane
workers, will probably be followed by similar decisions in other areas.
Such decisions will eliminate the discretion of the EI staff to deal
with the concrete reality of the workers in their regions and transform
them into mere instruments for purposes
of cutting unemployed workers off EI benefits no matter what the cost.
This is part of the government’s arsenal to cut EI benefits, force
unemployed workers to fend for themselves and lower the living and
working conditions of the workers. At the same time it has eliminated a
pilot project that gave five additional
weeks of EI benefits to workers in regions of particularly high
unemployment, is increasing surveillance of workers and draconian
regulations that can be changed willy-nilly by the Minister and taking
other measures.
Workers are not fraudsters or criminals. They are faced
with an
economic system and authorities that are not able nor interested in
providing employment for all, but instead create havoc in peoples'
lives. Workers are being penalized and criminalized for problems they
did not create.
This must not pass! The Matane workers did nothing
wrong! The Harper
government must stop at once its harassment of workers on EI
and of regions that are already affected by the wrecking of
manufacturing and are going through most difficult times.
Communications between Unions, Defence Organizations
and Lawyers and EI Officials
No Longer Possible
A number of defence organizations
of unemployed workers were informed
recently that from now on Service Canada is no longer able to receive
verbal communications
between unions, defence organizations or lawyers and EI officials when
dealing with cases of EI beneficiaries. From now on, only
communications in writing or
by fax will be accepted. This is one more blow from an anti-social
government hell bent on forcing unemployed workers to fend for
themselves and face that big EI steamroller alone. The unions and
defence organizations of unemployed workers are committed to forcing
Service Canada, acting on behalf of the Harper
government, to back off from this new measure.
 Direct verbal communications,
mostly over the phone,
between
representatives of EI beneficiaries and EI officials assigned to deal
with them is a necessary component of the day-to-day work of the
organizations that represent the workers. An unemployed worker goes to
the office of a defence organization and
authorizes it to represent him in dealing with the EI office.
According to activists who defend the unemployed, a large number of
cases can be sorted out through a phone conversation with an EI
official if the problem is one of a technicality, an administrative
mistake, a form that was not filled out properly
etc. These phone calls are also used by activists to learn from
officials why the EI recipient was cut off or their claim rejected and
that assists in the preparation of the worker’s defence. After a
worker's claim is rejected or their EI cut off, there is a period of
only 30 days to demand a review of the ruling or to file
an appeal if the review is unfavourable to the worker. Writing a
request causes a huge delay in the process, not to mention the fact
that the defence organizations have very few staff and are dealing with
an increasing number of cases and that EI staff also are being
drastically cut in the context of the Harper government’s
slashing of the federal public service.
There used to be EI staff specifically assigned to deal
with the
representatives of unemployed workers. They were called liaison
officers and they had decision-making power to some extent. In 2010,
this position was eliminated and a new one -- "specialists" -- was
introduced to provide services to citizens.
These were EI staff who have no decision-making power but who
nonetheless could directly answer questions put to them by unemployed
workers’
representatives and be a link with decision-making bodies. They have
now been replaced by fax machines and nobody knows who will handle
these!
According to the unemployed workers’ defence
organizations, this new
measure of the Harper government is going to make their work of
representing and defending the workers much more difficult. They recall
that such a measure was attempted by the government in 2010 and had to
be withdrawn because it
was not manageable. They say the measure is going to push more workers
to use the new appeal system that was introduced by the Harper
government on April 1 as part of its anti-social changes to the EI
program, while the government makes it much more difficult for the
organizations to prepare an appeal
and the appeal system itself is smashed.
The previous appeal regime was made up of boards of
referees
operating in all the regions on a tripartite basis -- a chairperson, a
representative of the workers and a representative of the employers.
There used to be more than 800 people across the country working for
the appeal system (they worked for both
the EI and the Canada Pension Plan/Old Age Pension regimes). If the
decision of the board of referees was unfavourable to the worker, an
appeal could be made to an umpire who could overturn or maintain the
decision of the board. In the new system, the whole appeal system (of
the EI and CPP/Old Age regimes)
is centralized in a Tribunal of Social Security which sits in Ottawa
and is run by a single individual, assisted by 74 people across the
country, all appointed by the government. The workings of the new
system are not all known but what is known is that all decisions are
going to be taken by a single individual, that
prior to having the right to launch an appeal the EI recipient or his
representative will have to go through a review of the decision of the
EI office, then through the general division of the Tribunal and then
only, if the review and the ruling of the general division are
unfavourable to the worker, an appeal can be
made to the division of appeal of the Tribunal. The stated aim of this
change according to the Harper government is to make sure that there
are fewer appeals of the EI rulings.
Workers and the organizations that represent them are
getting squeezed out of the regime. This must not pass!
Number of Workers Receiving EI Keeps Falling
According to Statistics Canada's
survey, the number of workers receiving EI benefits has declined for
the fifth consecutive month in March 2013. It declined by 1.0% in March
compared to February (-5,200) to 523,700. Compared with a year
earlier, the number of beneficiaries 8.1% lower. The trend downward is
in all provinces and territories. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the
number of EI beneficiaries in March compared to February fell 2.1%,
from 31,420 to 30,770, and 11.3% since March 2012; in Prince
Edward Island, the number was down 0.5% (from 8,080 to 8,040) from
February to March and
9.4% from March 2012 to March 2013; in Nova Scotia, the number was
down 0.8% from February to March and 9.6% since March 2012 and in New
Brunswick, it was down 0.4% from February to March and 5.8% since March
2012. In Quebec, the number of EI beneficiaries was down 0.9% from
February to
March and 8.8% since March 2012. Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut
also posted a lower number of EI beneficiaries in March compared to
February and since March 2012, with the exception of Nunavut where the
number of EI beneficiaries
increased by 4.2% since March 2012.
 Statistics Canada does not provide
data on the nature of
the downward trend, how they correspond for example with the number of
workers whose EI benefits are being cut or whose claims are being
rejected, something that is a stated aim of the changes that the Harper
government made to the EI rules. One figure
however is very telling. It is the figure about the number of EI claims
that are being made by workers. To receive EI benefits, workers must
first submit a claim. According to Statistics Canada, the number of
initial and renewal claims rose by 6,800 (+3.0%) to 230,700 in March.
Alberta (+12.6%) posted the largest
percentage increase in claims in March, followed by New Brunswick (+
4.1%), Nova Scotia (+3.5%), Quebec (+3.5%) and Ontario (+2.7%). The
number of initial and renewal claims fell by 15,200 (-6.3%) to 223,900
in February of this year, while it rose by 8,700 (+3.8%) to 238,500 in
January. The steady decrease
in the number of workers who receive benefits is occurring as the
number of claims is overall steady in the last five months with months
of
sharp increase. This is an indication that a large number of claims are
being rejected.
 Representatives of defence
organizations of the
unemployed told the media that they see nothing
positive in the fact that the number of people getting EI benefits is
falling. They see these figures as the consequence of the renewed
assault against the unemployed workers.
"What we see on the ground is how workers are being
affected by the new criteria that are being imposed, besides the quotas
that are imposed on the EI investigators to force them to find people
who may have made a mistake in their file so as to get them out of the
program. In the study they made of the impact
of the changes to the EI system, they were openly saying that their aim
is to cut off 8,000 people immediately and save $30 million a year. It
is easy to see that these data have nothing to do with an improvement
in the economy," said Sylvain Bergerons the coordinator of Actions and
Services Working in Unity
with the Unemployed (LASTUSE), in Saguenay, Quebec.
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Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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