—that they are useless.
The minister said exactly what my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska said: that the new federal budget does not reflect Quebec's priorities.
He said that the budget had to reflect Quebec's priorities. I was there when he said it. She said that the budget does not reflect Quebec's priorities. At a press conference, Ms. Jérôme-Forget said:
I am disappointed... With $20 billion worth of room to manoeuvre, the minister...had plenty of opportunity to announce new support measures for the forestry and manufacturing industries
That is what my colleague said. Was what she said useless? If it was, then he should say so again today, here in the House, and he should say so in his riding and the other ridings where he goes around posturing. The minister added that despite that, the federal minister had “made choices” that did not meet the needs expressed by the Government of Quebec. That is what she condemned.
It is not just the Bloc that is saying so. My colleague who spoke before me mentioned that all the industry stakeholders and major players in Quebec had spoken out against this budget and had said that it did not represent Quebeckers' economic or social values.
Let us now take a look at older workers. We met with about twenty of them when we travelled there. The hon. member can attest to that. They told us that they had been abandoned. They asked what would happen. We told them that the state, the federal government, had set up a training program to encourage people to rejoin the labour force. If we take a closer look—and this is where the government is investing even more—we realize that this is not a problem, because older workers are willing to back to work when there is work is available, and when they can do the job and have the proper training to do it. Then, there is no problem.
However, what do we tell those for whom there is no work available, and those whose basic training does not allow them to retrain for existing jobs in the riding, in the constituency? Are we going to have to endorse the Conservative government's position and tell these 55, 57 or 60 year old people to move to Alberta? They have families. Are we going to tell them to sell their houses or whatever, move to Alberta and work there for next to nothing? In Alberta, those who earn good salaries are workers who are qualified, who have proper training.
There are still 880,000 people in this country who rely on food banks. About 14% of them are workers, and the highest rate of workers relying on food banks is in Alberta. Why? Because these people were uprooted and made to work for a pittance. This is merely displacing poverty.
Such is the situation presented by this budget, and this is what the Liberal Party supports, along with the Conservatives. It is shameful. To vote with the Conservatives on their budget is to support war, oil and nuclear weapons. It is to support ideas that kill.