Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's remarks and I was shocked by her referring to "chronic use of unemployment insurance" as if implying that people who are on UI, year after year, or rather frequently, are doing it on purpose. I could not help but think of the peat bog workers in Rivière Ouelle, or the hotel and inn employees in Rivière-du-Loup, or the forestry workers in Saint-Jean-de-Dieu and wonder what they must think of what is going on in this government.
This government, which was elected to create jobs, has not been giving much hope to people in the regions. It has been telling them: "We are going to create a two-tier unemployment insurance system which will penalize those who use it often; at the same time, we are going to reduce the investment tax credit which allowed regions to create permanent jobs and seasonal workers to go on from seasonal jobs to regular jobs, all year round". By reducing the investment tax credit, the message the government is giving them is this: "It is your own fault if you
are still on UI. It is your problem and it is up to you to solve it". The government gives them a contradictory message.
In the outlying regions, people are reacting to the fact that the government is getting ready to cut transport subsidies in an unfair manner, without even looking at the economic impact. For the past 50 or 60 years, in eastern Quebec and Atlantic Canada, there has been a tradition of transport subsidies which could disappear without anyone knowing the impact it will have if the rules of the game, of the market, are not respected. People who work in these areas and who will be hurt by these decisions are wondering what is going on in Ottawa, and why decisions which are detrimental to regional development are made.
The other example is the government's withdrawal from transport, airports, harbours and railways. It is getting out of all these areas at the same time and people are asking me what a radio personality was asking me the other day, which is: Who is going to stop all this? Who is going to get a handle on this? I would like the member to tell me how she would cut wasteful expenditures and increase revenues since, in her remarks, she talked a lot about higher revenues and what we could all do to do our fair share. Would she consider taxing family trusts and thus bring some degree of fairness to our tax system?