Jobs are being created, but we are still experiencing a crisis and I would not like to hear people saying that it is over. It is important to be very aware of what is going on. The entire forest industry in Quebec is still very seriously affected and the federal government has invested very little in that sector, unlike what was done in Ontario in the automotive industry.
Ms. Folco, I had the feeling that the first Conservative MP who spoke had asked a question. He said the government had invested a lot of money in training and skills development through the EI Program. But, in terms of older people, the problem is not what is being invested in training. We are not questioning that; rather, we are questioning what is being done for people aged 55 and over, the people we—colloquially—call the hard core. These are individuals who are not capable of going back to school, who are 55 or 56 years old and cannot retire yet, for all kind of reasons. They are functionally illiterate, or pretty well, and now, even though they have always been machinists and have been doing the same work since the age of 15, they are being asked to retrain. There are very few people in that situation. In a company where 100 people are laid off, there may be one or two of them. They are the ones we are talking about. Since the federal government cancelled POWA, nothing has been done for them. That is what I am talking about and what the Quebec unions are talking about.