Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank you for your testimony. I want to say a special hello to Sylvain Parent, who is from the riding of Joliette. He mentioned the announcement two weeks ago that a plant would close in Saint-Michel-des-Saints. We hope it will be only a temporary closure. The sawmill and the waferboard mill have shut down. Six hundred direct and indirect jobs are threatened.
From the very beginning, the Bloc Québécois and the other opposition parties have been demanding that assistance be provided as a result of this dispute with the Americans. In the case of the companies affected, we have talked about loan guarantees, whereas for workers, we have said that changes to Employment Insurance are required. In this latter case, we not only propose that the number of hours required to access employment insurance be much lower—we suggested 360 hours—but also that assistance programs aimed at older workers, such as the ones in place until 1998, be brought back. In that regard, the previous government showed absolutely no openness to these ideas, except towards the end of its mandate, a few weeks before an election was called. At that point, it announced loan guarantees over a five-year period totalling $800 million. For its part, the new government has made no announcement whatsoever.
In your view—and here I am addressing my question to Mr. Parent and Mr. Rivard—had assistance programs been in place, would the circumstances of the industry and affected communities be any different? There was a program introduced for affected communities. However, I checked to see what the situation was in the Lanaudière region, and it turns out that no money has been allocated to the forest industry. Nothing has really been done to help that industry. The money was used to open tourist bureaus or for tourist activities.
Can we assume that given the difficult circumstances in which the industry finds itself—Mr. Parent emphasized that point, saying that the Canadian dollar and energy costs are high—additional liquidity would have helped workers come through this crisis with less economic hardship? Perhaps we would now be in a position to continue negotiations with the Americans.
It seems to me that because of the lack of financial support, a lot of people are going along with this agreement because there is a knife to their throat, as my colleague, Robert Vincent, said earlier. These people are even being told that they won't get any assistance if they don't support the agreement. In your opinion and from the perspective of the unions, had there been an assistance program in place, would that additional flexibility mean that negotiations or the battle in U.S. courts could continue?