Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak following my colleague from Mirabel. I plan to take a slightly different approach in my speech, in that my speech will focus more on my riding.
My colleague talked about how this measure could look like an election gimmick. He even asked the Minister of Finance if he had his election signs ready. I want to echo what my colleague was saying, because there are many ways the government could help the entire population, and the unilateral policies look a lot like a marketing ploy on the part of the government, which is boasting about the fact that it is going to help some 12 million Canadians and Quebeckers.
For years, everyone has been hammering home the point that people are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table. Whether in Canada or Quebec, the situation is different depending on the community. Not all communities have the same level of wealth. Not all families have the same income or the same salary. Not all of them live in big cities. My colleague mentioned Costco and Walmart. In a riding like mine, sometimes people do not even have a grocery store within a three-hour drive. I will let my colleagues figure out how expensive that can be and what it means for folks in Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan.
That being said, a number of things in my riding could have had a considerable impact. When we talk about the cost of living, of course, the whole issue of groceries comes to mind. Now, we are being told that GST credit increase, as shown, will not be available to everyone. Furthermore, it will not be available quickly. People will have to wait three months. However, when people need money, when they want to eat, there is no time to waste. If people want to make a budget, they need to know how much money they are going to receive so they can stretch it out for the time it takes. I am really talking about stretching it out. I know that the election campaign was about 10 months ago, but I want to show how capable we are of acting fairly quickly to resolve certain situations, in ways other than some marketing stunt like this, even though we agree and we want to put more money in the pockets of Canadians and Quebeckers. That is certain.
The fact remains that there are other ways to help. My colleague mentioned the issue of seniors, for example. Some of them are in vulnerable situations. They are still being discriminated against by the government, yet the government refuses to correct that mistake, its discrimination. That would be a good start. Any change in the tax system that would allow seniors to work would be welcome. Many want to work, but feel that they cannot because any money they make—which could help them make ends meet and put food on the table—would get clawed back. That is one example for seniors. I am in a constituency where there are many seniors in vulnerable situations, living with the challenges that come with rural constituencies like mine. People have to travel 300, 200 or 100 kilometres to get services that will never match what is available in large centres.
When it comes to employment insurance, I say the same thing every time: We need a reform. Once again, the government has been bragging about how it will undertake a reform. It has been 10 years, now going on 11. The Liberals have said in every one of their election platforms that they were going to reform the employment insurance system. It is getting ridiculous. Again, EI is a little bit different everywhere, but in a riding like mine, where many people rely on seasonal industries and there are many seasonal workers, a reform is necessary. These people cannot make it through the whole year.
What the government is doing is preventing people from living in and occupying certain areas. At a time when we are talking about sovereignty and matters of national security, the government is displacing people from their land and driving them out of rural regions like mine. That is one way of doing things, and it kills industries. It can kill industries like the fishery, for example. It harms tourism, of course. The forestry industry is also affected. We should not be looking down on these industries because they are what help communities like mine thrive. Summer is really difficult these days, and I will talk more about the forestry industry later. There is really a need.
Obviously, we would like this to be developed, including secondary and tertiary processing, so that everything does not need to be sent out and people can work all year round. When you live in a region like the Lower North Shore, for example, where there are not necessarily roads connecting every village, where there are fishers with a few processing plants, it is hard to develop while in a constant state of survival. Food prices are not the same as in Montreal or even in certain parts of my riding. We are already facing huge challenges. People do not have the money to invest and grow. They need a big helping hand, more than just a GST rebate.
I said I would come back to forestry. The same goes for the forestry sector. In my riding, some communities are emptying out. It may be an exaggeration to say that entire towns are emptying out, but in places like Port-Cartier, where Arbec is located, and Baie-Comeau, where Domtar is located, hundreds of jobs have been lost, including indirect jobs related to these activities.
There are jobs where the government is telling workers that it will not help them at all. These people have no money left in their pockets. They may have to leave the region. Some have already quit and left. The economy is being destabilized right now, particularly in the forestry sector in my region. It is happening in other places also and some of my colleagues are seeing it as well. This is not helping people put food on the table. People are leaving the regions because of a lack of measures. The government is unable to stimulate the economy. It is not even able to maintain the precarious situations that existed before. Once again, a GST credit will not do any good.
Instead, why not implement a program to temporarily keep workers on the job until disputes are resolved, like the tariffs imposed by the U.S. or the CUSMA renegotiations that will be taking place later on? We remain very vulnerable, and this is yet another blow.
I mentioned EI, seniors and forestry. I would also add temporary foreign workers to the list. It may seem strange to bring this up now, but while it was not a question of cheques being taken away or reducing GST credits, the measures announced by the government in 2024 are having a real impact on our region. The people who came here to work helped companies develop. Some of these businesses, in certain sectors, are not even sure whether they will be able to stay open. They may have to close down or slow down production, simply because they can no longer manage.
The Bloc Québécois is asking for something very simple. Earlier, someone said that all the Bloc does is criticize. That is not true. We have made proposals. Why not put a moratorium on the temporary foreign worker cap? That would give them time to make other arrangements. Can we have discussions about what could be done to allow these people, who are already well established in our regions, to remain there? Our population is declining. I want people to be able to stay in my region, but the message we are sending them is that fishing and forestry are bad.
Nothing is being done for seniors. Like I said earlier, my riding has a lot of seniors. As for young people, the same thing goes for them. Income tax credits could be provided to help young people. Nothing was said about housing. All of these things are interconnected. There is more to it than groceries alone. What people spend on groceries is money not spent on housing. There are a lot of factors involved.
I could also mention Nutrition North Canada. People forget that in some places, especially in indigenous communities, in northern regions like mine or in remote areas, food prices are already extremely high, and nothing has been resolved. Nothing was resolved before we started talking about it more in connection with certain urban or non-indigenous communities. Things are still the same in my riding: In the north, in indigenous communities, everything is already extremely expensive. No help is on the way, and prices keep going up for them too. Some programs should be reviewed. Once again, the GST cannot fix these situations. It is a band-aid solution, a marketing ploy.
I also talked about indigenous issues. I am now the indigenous affairs critic. Perhaps some people forget about these communities too often, because food insecurity affects them, too. I would like everyone to really pay attention to this. I said that it affects those communities, and it has for a long time. This is nothing new. The housing we are talking about is really not a new issue for them either.
The Bloc Québécois supports a measure like this one, but we believe that the government can do better. In any case, we can see that it is increasing its deficit by $3 billion, an amount that will climb to $12 billion, simply to get some good press. Meanwhile, people have basic needs, such as housing and food, and they need help with that now. The Bloc Québécois is proposing solutions to achieve that.
