Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised that the member was unable to answer, or even to defend what is in the document which is supposed to be a discussion paper, because the provisions which the member for Quebec has referred to are totally unacceptable. That the government even thought that unemployment benefits for women could take the family income into consideration is totally unacceptable and a step backwards that the entire population, for that matter, would certainly not let happen.
Since January, the government has been trying to convince us that there was an emergency in this country. It did not talk about that during the election campaign, but suddenly, in January, the minister of Human Resources Development announced that what was most pressing, most urgent for the development of Canada and its future was a social program reform. A wide reform which should extend to the whole country.
What has happened since that time? The committee on human resources development was given a mandate to consult Canadians on their views. The committee was expected to table its report quickly, on March 25, so that the minister could put his work plan on the table as early as April and the legislation could be passed swiftly in the fall, in order to finally address that urgent problem.
Surprise! The committee on human resources development started its work and had only two weeks to rapidly consult a number of groups and experts. But during that time, the government, without any consulting, decided to cut unemployment benefits and to include in the budget cuts totalling $7.4 billion over three years and affecting social programs, i.e. unemployment insurance, the Canada Assistance Plan and established programs financing.
But that was not all. Bombarded with questions, Mr. Martin, the minister, said that he expected additional cuts in the reform undertaken by his colleague. The cat got out of the bag yesterday morning, just in time to colour what is not an action plan any more, but rather a pale green discussion paper, as some reporters have said.
So, the cat that got out of the bag is that over and above the $7.4 billion cuts already voted and included in the budget, the government would cut at least another $7 billion by the year 1999. And yet, there is no rush now. We now have plenty of time to consult the public. There is no action plan any more, only a discussion paper. Why? Because what was urgent was cutting without consulting, without caring about who would be brutally affected, including those children who are said today to be the biggest concern of the government. What a shame! I have to use parliamentary language.
The point I want to make this morning is that this discussion paper, which is supposed to launch a sweeping reform, this discussion paper called Improving Social Security in Canada , does not augur well, either for the people who need it or for the provinces, which are now responsible for all of these areas except unemployment insurance.
It should be said loud and clear, and we will say it again, that this is not a program for people, whether they are unemployed, about to lose their jobs, need an income, are on welfare, or are first-time job seekers. It is not a program for people in need, for
the poor and destitute. It is a program for a government that wants to cut spending, a government that does not have the guts to introduce tax reforms-my colleagues will elaborate-a government that is afraid to tell Employment and Immigration Canada that it cannot ride roughshod over Canadians. The program aims to centralize, and generous though the minister may seem, his idea of decentralizing is travelling around the country and signing programs himself.
This reform is definitely not for people. Let us consider very briefly some of the most frequently quoted reasons for proceeding with this so-called urgent reform. One word we hear constantly is backlog. Programs have a tremendous backlog. Backlog of what? They do not really say, but the impression is that there are too many unemployed for UI to handle. The government calls this a social security program, but everyone will agree that the best social security for people who are able to work is a job. This program has no employment plan, and whenever it refers to what it will do for people who need jobs, it says it will give them the means to look for one.
We are going to turn the unemployed into job seekers. This is not job creation but job search. They say there is a backlog because the economy is changing. Yes, it is changing, and it is changing very quickly. What kind of work does this new economy produce? It produces work that is less permanent. All industrialized countries agree that market globalization, technological change, and changes in family patterns are phenomena that have a major impact on society and employment.
Are these dynamics understood? Hardly. Does the government realize that the main problem-and we do not know how long this will last-is that except for the lucky ones with steady jobs whose numbers are decreasing, jobs are becoming less and less permanent and are held for increasingly shorter periods? Does it realize that there is pressure to reduce the number of unions and thus lessen pressures on the labour market?
The fact facing most people who are employed and all those people who are looking for work is that, in most cases, the jobs available are short-term jobs, either by their nature or because it may be difficult to stay in a particular job. When people say the problem is the backlog, it seems to me there is a backlog in the thinking of those who produced this document, a failure to realize that spending cuts and the old programs the Liberals were never able to implement after trying to do so on so many previous occasions are not the answer. A new approach is needed to deal with these problems.
They were not able to negotiate or legislate any solution, and I will give one example. Parliamentarians who-