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Radio Interview with MP Mike Savage, CHQR-R (Calgary), The Rutherford Show

DAVE RUTHERFORD (CHQR-R) (Host): First of all, you have heard that the federal government will not jack up EI rates to the maximum allowable. It listened to small business and will only increase EI rates some 5 per cent. The Federation of Independent Business suggested a full 15-per-cent jump in EI this year and ongoing would cost 170,000 jobs in this country. The federal government listened and will not jack up the rates as much but they will go up.

EI and the unemployed have been a very hot political potato in Ottawa.  Remember, Michael Ignatieff? Remember Michael Ignatieff back in the day when he said Mr. Harper, your time is up, right? Remember that? Remember all that bravado? You’re doing down! We’ll take you down whenever we want, right? He was being very ooohhh, super leader on EI. 

Forty-five day workweek, or 45 days to qualify for a year EI. No, that’s what we wanted. We’re sticking to it.  Well, not so much. You see, politics is like that.  The leader of the opposition, the leader Michael Ignatieff repeatedly said that the 45-day work year is his top priority. We’ll go to the people over it.  Well, that was then, you know! But now, not so much. He’s backing away from that. He doesn’t support it anymore. He’s also backing away from this very, very contentious bill.  And I’m glad he is, but nonetheless, he’s backing away, Bill 308, which is going to allow immigrants access to all kinds of social programs in Canada with very, very little time served in Canada. Anyway, a lot of the stuff he’s flipped on.

But on the EI, on the EI deal, he is not getting full support from his caucus.

With me, MIKE SAVAGE, Liberal MP, Dartmouth-Coal Harbour, Human Resources and Skills Development critic.

Hi, Mike.

MIKE SAVAGE (Liberal MP for Dartmouth-Coal Harbour): Hi, David, how are you?

DAVE RUTHERFORD: I’m well, sir. Mike, you are still going to support, it’s basically a block proposal, the 45-day qualification for a year’s worth of EI, even though you agree it’s irresponsible, Mike, you’re still going to support it. Why?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, let’s understand a couple of things, Dave. First of all, this bill was never going to become law. It required, because it involves spending, it could never become law of the government unless they accepted it themselves. So it’s always been a moot point for almost a year now, since the Speaker ruled it couldn’t become law.

So the issue for us was you sent a message and we sent a message that we think the government needs to do more on EI, but we’ve never supported all the components of this bill but we felt we needed to send a message. And the fact that it was never going to become law, we thought... You know, it’s not a government bill, so it’s a big difference, Dave.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, but it’s still a position. It’s an ideological or it’s a party position, right?

MIKE SAVAGE: No. No, it’s not.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Wait a second. Your leader...

MIKE SAVAGE: No, it’s a private-members bill.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Yes.

MIKE SAVAGE: Last week people were complaining that the Liberals ripped the private-members bill. We ripped that one because it was a government bill dressed up as a private-members bill. But we don’t rip private-members votes.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: You’re talking about the long-gun? You’re talking about the long gun?

MIKE SAVAGE: (Inaudible) recommendation, it can’t become law.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: So you’re talking about the long gun thing, the private-members bill? Is that what you’re talking about?

MIKE SAVAGE: Yes, correct.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, so you say that was sort of disguised as a government bill?

MIKE SAVAGE: Totally disguised, but disguised, yes.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, so even though it came from a backbench Conservative. So this one though you say the Bloc private-members bill, is a real private-members bill because there’s no connection with the government, whatever.

MIKE SAVAGE: Correct.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, so those don’t matter. 

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, they matter in the sense that they make a point in the House of Commons and elsewhere, but private-members business, Dave, as you probably know, cannot be incumbent upon the government to spend money.  And they are ruled upon by the Speaker as either going to be admissible or inadmissible on a final-stage vote.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Sure. I know, Mike, but your position on the issue matters, doesn’t it?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, it does, but in the same way that when we vote on a budget, we may not like everything that’s in a budget, but you know, either have to vote yes or no.  And in this case, there was parts of this bill that under circumstances we thought would be good. We were supportive of the idea of broadening out access to employment insurance so people from Calgary and other areas, many of the parts of Alberta who weren’t able to qualify for employment insurance, at the height of the recession, which we’re not out of yet, but there was an issue of fairness on employment insurance, but there was other parts of the bill that we would never support.

You know, increasing from 55 to 60 per cent, we don’t think is a sensible position. 

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, but that is part of the bill.

MIKE SAVAGE: Correct.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: That you will support.

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, it’s all done now.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, but you did support it and you’re...

MIKE SAVAGE: I voted for the bill for the same reason that I did last year, which is to send a message on employment insurance that we need to do more and there are people in Canada that need more help than they’ve received.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Because of rules of eligibility?

MIKE SAVAGE: Yes, because of rules of eligibility, but we also think there’s other things. We think that training, if people don’t qualify for employment insurance, in a lot of cases, that means they don’t apply for any training or qualify for any training either, we think employment insurance needs to be a better-used process to provide the skills that are needed for the changing economy.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: So EI to be used, Mike, as a social program?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, EI in many ways is a social program. We think it needs to be, or can be used more as an economic program as well, to provide the skills and training for people who are either unemployed or under-employed and end up having to upgrade their skills to adjust to the new economy.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: But EI should be an insurance plan, isn’t it?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, I mean, it’s traditionally been called insurance plan and it’s insurance against people who lose their jobs. But the problem, as you would know, is that many people got no benefit from it at all. There was a point in time when 80-some people who were unemployed qualified for EI. Now it’s around 50 per cent. It was lower than that. It was actually 44 per cent in 2007. So there’s a lot of gaps in employment insurance as it exists today.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Mike, do you agree on increasing the EI premiums as much as possible?

MIKE SAVAGE: Not at all. In fact, if you’ll recall, our plan was that our changes to EI to put money in people’s pockets was that it should be part of the stimulus program. It should not come out of the employment insurance fund. We don’t think that the employment insurance rates should be going up at a time of recession.

We think that’s irresponsible as well.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: But you’re saying though it should or should not be self-sustaining insurance plan?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, the employment insurance system needs to be, I think, adjusted so it more suits the needs of both the economy and individual unemployed people. It needs to become more countercyclical. It needs to be set up in such a way that, you know, it might be that there’s money in the fund when times are good, but when times are bad, that’s when people need to have more assistance.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Based on their contributions though? Like I guess I’m wondering about how it would work in your world.  You work a certain amount, you make contributions with your employer, right?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, right now it’s not entirely based on contributions at all. You have people who have paid into employment insurance for many, many years who weren’t able to qualify when they lost their job because of the fact that they needed more hours of qualification. 

I come from an area, the Halifax area of Nova Scotia, where you need the maximum number of hours, so there was many people in my part of the world who don’t qualify for employment insurance, even though they’ve paid in for so many years.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: So what would the qualifications be, the 45 days?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, we proposed, during the recession, that it would be 360 hours. I mean, the Conservatives spinning up the 45-day work year is just all politics and propaganda. We think that for a time of recession, the 360 hours, that people should qualify to get some benefits. Now, as part of stimulus and coming out of the consolidated revenue fund, as did the rest of the infrastructure program and everything else that was part of stimulus.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Yes, yes, but that’s not EI then if it comes out of the fund to restore the rest of the economy and invest in all these public work projects. That’s not the same thing.

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, but it would be if you made the funds sustainable and actuarially balanced over time, you would have money in the fund when times are good and you would have money paid out when times are bad and you would have a long-term balance in the fund. It would become a much more reasonable and financially responsible business model.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: But it’s one more big government fund though, isn’t it?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, no, we have employment insurance. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t have any employment insurance?

DAVE RUTHERFORD: I think it should be run as an insurance entity.

MIKE SAVAGE: But if you look at how insurance companies work, they do it over a long period of time. They don’t look at it as one year and say we collected $18 billion and $18 billion will go out. They would look it at and say over a period of time, you know, you collect. That’s how insurance works, you know. People don’t all collect insurance, but when they need it, having paid into it, they should get it. It shouldn’t depend on their postal code, whether they qualify for employment insurance.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: It’s also not a savings account, Mike.

MIKE SAVAGE: Correct.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: It’s insurance. 

MIKE SAVAGE: Exactly, but for many people right now, they just didn’t qualify as many people in the province of Alberta where I am today who wouldn’t have qualified for employment insurance at all. And at a particularly difficult time, at a time of a recession, we think that they should have that assistance.

And, Dave, remember one of the things about EI, whatever people think about it, it is probably the best form of stimulus in the economy because people who get the money spend it because they have to spend it. So it goes back into the economy. It has a much better impact in the economy than even infrastructure and certainly more than tax cuts.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: But that’s the old left-wing. The NDP runs on this all the time. Government spends a whole bunch of money. Give a whole bunch of money to people because they recycle the money in the economy.

Well, that’s not true. The money came from me! 

MIKE SAVAGE: Yes, but that’s not what I’m saying.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay.

MIKE SAVAGE: What I’m saying is at a time of economic distress, if you’re going to have assistance to people, stimulus was about putting in the economy.  That’s what it was about. It was about putting money in the economy. Why not put it into people who will then spend the money and by the way help their families when they need it and do it on a more equitable basis?

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Mike, hang on a second.  MIKE SAVAGE, my guest, Liberal MP, Dartmouth-Coal Harbour, talking about the EI situation and the various aspects of it. As he says, a private-members bill from the Bloc has no bearing on anything. It won’t become law, didn’t become law, but still it is an indicator of people’s intentions.

We’ll come back. Your chance to talk to Mike as well after this.

(break)

DAVE RUTHERFORD: My guest is MIKE SAVAGE, Liberal MP, talking about EI and EI policy. And were you startled? I’m going to take some questions, Mike. Were you startled by the fact that Ignatieff had flipped on this thing?

MIKE SAVAGE: No. I don't think it was a flip at all. As I said, our view on this bill, and there’s other EI Bills that have gone before the House over many years, and our view was that we were sending a message to the government. This started over a year ago that we want to send a message that more needs to be done on employment insurance. That’s why we supported the bill.

We made clear from the beginning we don’t support all parts of it. And, you know, we want to make sure that whatever policy we have on employment insurance is responsible and fair but also recognizes that we’re in a difficult time, we continue to be in a difficult time. There’s 150,000 people less working in fulltime jobs than there was and, you know, we have to find a balanced approach.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, but your party was prepared to go to an election before. Not so much now.

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, we weren’t prepared to go to an election on EI. We were prepared to go an election on a number of issues last year. In fact, it was an employment insurance bill that the NDP voted with the government on that we thought was irresponsible and cost a lot of money, almost $1 billion, that we didn't think was a fair and reasonable employment insurance bill. That’s what kept the government going year, David.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay. So you’re not ready to go to the people over this issue or maybe any other issue right now. Is that right?

MIKE SAVAGE: I mean, our leader will decide that. I’m prepared to go the election whenever Mr. Ignatieff and others suggest that. But it’s not really up to us so much as it is the government. If the government wants to make Parliament work, we’re prepared to make it work. If they’re not, we’re prepared to do what comes next.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: And making it work means do it your way.

MIKE SAVAGE: No. No, no.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: No? No?

MIKE SAVAGE: Listen. Hey, Dave, come on now, Dave. You’ve often said that we’ve rolled over on things. The beauty of being a Liberal is that even on this bill that we’re talking about today we get hammered by the Bloc and the NDP on one side for being pro business and not standing up for the little guy and then attacked by the Conservatives for the exact opposite thing. As Liberals, we’re balanced and reasonable and we want to make Parliament work.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Let’s see, some audience questions for you, Mike. Gord, go ahead.

CALLER: Hi, Dave. Wow! Wow!

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Yes, well...

CALLER: I’ve decided I can’t become a politician, Mike, because of what I’m listening to here. Even with your platinum or titanium pension plans that you guys vote yourself in, which I would love to have, by the way, if you can work that for me, that would be great.    

You talk EI or UI like you really believe this. Why don't you study how many chronic users there are? I’d be very interested in that statistic. I have a couple of nephews that love the program, by the way. My buddies love the program too. They work, you know, I don't know, five hours or ten hours and they’re on EI for a year or UI or whatever you want to call it.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Not quite that way, but I know what you’re saying, Gord.

CALLER: Oh, sorry.  Sorry.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: I know what you’re saying.

CALLER: Maybe it’s a little more than that.

Also you said, you know, money, as it goes to people on EI are ones that spend it and it’s a good injection into the economy. I’m not on EI, by the way, I work and I pay into EI a lot of money. Why don't you just give me the extra money and I promise to put it back into the economy? What do you think? Could you answer any of this that I’ve asked?

DAVE RUTHERFORD: All right. Let’s find out.

CALLER: Anything.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Hang on, Gord.

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, I’m not quite exactly the question. If the question is...

DAVE RUTHERFORD: The question is, don't tax him so much. Let him decide where he spends his money.

MIKE SAVAGE: Yes, well, we... I mean, taxes have been reduced in this country, certainly starting in 2000 and on through the way. But I think there has to be a balanced approach to how you do things. And it’s not just me. It’s economists. It’s people like Ian Lee of the Sprott School of Business who last year indicated that employment insurance has the best stimulative effect in the economy because people need to spend it.

You know, if you reduce taxes on people that make a lot of money...

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Yes, but Mike...

MIKE SAVAGE: ... that’s part of it. But that doesn't go into the economy as much as if you’d give to people who have to spend it because they have no choice.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: But then you stand up and criticize the government for going so deeply in debt. Mike, you can’t have it both ways!

MIKE SAVAGE: Absolutely. We don't want to go into debt. It wasn’t us that put us there. It was the Conservatives.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Oh, my God!

MIKE SAVAGE: This is about choices. This is what it’s all about.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay.

MIKE SAVAGE: And if you think that an EI bill may or may not be irresponsible, but is it as irresponsible as spending $1.2 billion on a weekend meeting or spending billions on more prisons? Those are the choices that governments have to make. Right?

DAVE RUTHERFORD: That’s right.

MIKE SAVAGE: And in an election campaign, we’ll put our choices out there and people can make their decisions.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Well, I agree with you. But the beauty of being a Liberal, as you just said, is you can have it any way you want, on any day you choose. That seems to me to be the Liberal way.

MIKE SAVAGE: No. No.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: You can criticize something one day, support it the next.

MIKE SAVAGE: I certainly wouldn’t agree with you on that one.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Well...

MIKE SAVAGE: I think that in many ways, being in the centre of Canada, you know, politically...

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Yes.

MIKE SAVAGE: ... is not always easy. But it does provide you the opportunity to say look, for example it was the Liberals who cleaned up the economy in the 1990s and people criticized the Liberal government and said listen...

CALLER:  (Laughter)

MIKE SAVAGE: You know, maybe you guys made hard choices, right?

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Hang on.

MIKE SAVAGE: There have to be choices made and you’re responsible for those choices and we think you can make choices that balance the budget, that make a business program...

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Bill? Bill? Bill?

MIKE SAVAGE: ... that supports the cost to help people.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Bill, is that you laughing?

CALLER: Oh, yes!

DAVE RUTHERFORD: You go ahead.

CALLER: Sorry, I didn't...

DAVE RUTHERFORD: You go ahead.

CALLER: ... realize I was on.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: I know. You know, go ahead. I pushed the button early. Go ahead.

CALLER: Okay. I’m just heading out and then I turned on the radio and I heard you talking about how it stimulates the economy. I’m a farmer. I just got a couple of things to say.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: You go ahead.

CALLER: When I was a kid, yes, we used to call it the UI ski team.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Yep.

CALLER: In a perfect world, if it was only used for emergencies, great. But there are lots of abuses and nobody can argue with that. I’m a farmer. I work electrician in the winter. I pay UI. I can’t get it because I’m a farmer. I have an income already. I’ll never get that. But I pay into it.  

Now, I want a clear and decisive answer. Why do you think that an unemployed person will spend that money more than I would as a farmer?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, thank you for the question. It’s... there’s a lot of people who could spend money but I mean, it’s not just myself, but economists, people who study this and if somebody doesn’t have any money, and they get money, then they’re going to spend that.

CALLER:  But forget the studies. Forget the studies, forget those scientists or whatever.  I want to hear why you think that an unemployed person would spend the money in the economy more than I would.

MIKE SAVAGE: Because they have to.

CALLER:  Oh, and I don’t?

MIKE SAVAGE: Well, there’s lots of people that need to spend...

CALLER:  I have to.

MIKE SAVAGE: You know, maybe what I would suggest is that – and this is part of what Mr. Ignatieff said last year, let’s have a complete overhaul. Let’s look at employment insurance. If there are abuses, absolutely, let’s address those abuses.  I think one of the abuses was that at a time of very difficult economic circumstances, you had people like yourself who have paid into employment insurance for many years and they got nothing because of where they lived in the country, and I don’t think that that’s right either.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Okay, Bill, you made your point. Thanks for that.  You know, your leader also talked about the Maritimes and how much the Maritimes have enjoyed the relationship with the federal government basically saying they’ve been on welfare and they like it that way.  I mean, is this, is the use of EI and the abuse of it, is it a regional reality, Mike? Is it done more in the Maritimes than anywhere else?

MIKE SAVAGE: It’s not a regional reality at all. As I indicated, I come from the Maritimes. I’m from the Halifax area.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Yes, I know.

MIKE SAVAGE: There is no place in the country where it’s harder to qualify for EI than in Halifax. 

DAVE RUTHERFORD: What!? What!?

MIKE SAVAGE: And Halifax requires the maximum number of hours before you qualify for employment insurance.  There are parts of the Maritimes where it’s less hours, just as it is other parts of the country. But my point is you can’t look at this as a regional issue. It has to be looked at as a fairness issue.

And, Dave, if you think it’s a regional issue, then we need to do something to provide more opportunity for people who can’t collect EI in areas where traditionally they haven’t had to do it, but all of a sudden did during an economic crisis.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Mike, thank you very much for your time. It’s been good to talk to you.

MIKE SAVAGE: Yes, my pleasure. Any time, Dave.

DAVE RUTHERFORD: Mike, thank you. MIKE SAVAGE, Liberal MP, Dartmouth-Coal Harbour. We’re back after this.