Madam Speaker, I understand my time is just about up so I cannot be as expansive as I would like to on this.
Yes, I say to my friend from Lotbinière, I have many views on unemployment insurance and its application. Some of those views do not agree with some of the options laid out in the discussion paper which the Minister of Human Resources Development put before the public in the last week or so. I will have an opportunity to say that as I have already been saying so.
The time will come when we will have, as a result of those discussions, those public consultations-I have begun the process in my own riding and I am sure the member has in his because it is going to be a very thorough going review-and during the day I will have my say. At the end of the day, based on what kind of a package we come up with, I will do whatever the other members of the House will do. I will make a decision as to whether I will support that package or not.
If he wants my views on the issue in more detail I can give them to him when I have some more time. However I do not believe that one can punish people who through no fault of their own are locked into seasonal employment as opposed to longer term employment, for example.
I do not believe we can have in Canada two classes of citizens. We can have all the categories we want but we have to always apply the basic rule of fairness to all. If I had more time I would be much more specific on that issue. I have some strong views.
I have in my riding several thousands of people who drew their first cent of UI two years ago. I have people who fished for 35 years who never drew one cent of UI until two years ago. They fished for 11 and a half months a year. They took Christmas off and never even bothered to fill in the form even though they qualified for a week or two. They went back out again in January as they had done for many years.
My brief is not for people who have learned to beat the system. There are some of those out there. My brief is for those who are generally out of work from time to time and need the assistance of the program to see them through.