Thank you for inviting me to discuss the direct repercussions on individuals of all the problems we are encountering in the fishery and other sectors. For 20 years now, the Mouvement Action-Chômage Pabok Inc. has been defending people who encounter problems with the Employment Insurance Act. In fact, people often turn to our organization to try and understand what is happening to them when they are unable to find employment, and to receive advice as well.
In the last 20 years, we have experienced the closure of the Murdochville plant, the cod moratorium, and the closure of the Gaspésia plant on two occasions, before and after reconstruction. We also suffered the setbacks associated with the Smurfit-Stone plant in New Richmond. Every closure has had an appalling impact on individuals, families and children. First of all, the greatest impact is on jobs. Job sources are limited to three, although now it is more like two, since work opportunities are very limited in the forest industry. As a result, people have to upgrade their skills in order to move into other areas of employment.
When you have been a fisher for 20 years, it is pretty hard to move into the tourism industry and remain in the region. So, we see a lot of former workers leaving the region to go and work in Western Canada, on the North Shore, in Montreal—all over the place. They work in order to qualify for employment insurance, so that they can return to their region. Most of the people I have spoken to tell me that they end up with less money when they have to leave the region to work somewhere else. The main reasons for that are, first of all, travel costs, because they go back home to visit their families regularly, and also the fact that they have to pay rent both at home and outside their region. I regularly have occasion to see the disastrous family environment that this creates. There are suicides, separations, kids who have to be taken out of high school and university, because there is not enough money to meet their needs. We have seen families broken up and their homes repossessed by banking institutions. All of that creates an absolutely miserable environment.
The people who are left here, who do not have an opportunity to go and work somewhere else, are reduced to working at short-term jobs provided by Emploi-Québec every season, where they earn $10, $11 or $12 an hour, or an annual income of $20,000 or $22,000, placing them just slightly above the poverty line.
So, you can imagine the kind of gloomy atmosphere that settles over a region such as ours. Often we ask ourselves why we are unable to recover from this. When the climate turns gloomy after consecutive closures, people feel as though they have hit rock bottom. As a result, it is very difficult, and it takes a very long time to regain a positive spirit and possibly start a new business or invest money—of course, someone who is not earning any money is not able to invest any.
For us, this has been the situation since the cod moratorium, which resulted in the layoff of almost 1,000 people. At the Murdochville plant, it was 700 or 800; at Gaspésia, 600 or 700; and at Smurfit-Stone, 300 or 400. Those are direct jobs that do not include all the indirect jobs.
The population of the Gaspé area is aging. The region is emptying out and, very often, the ones who are leaving are replaced by retirees—former residents of the region who spent 30 years working somewhere else and have come back home. The economy is obviously a little less dynamic when it is supported by retirees.
Those are the comments I wanted to make this morning.
Thank you.