Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her question. First, she herself was a self-employed businesswoman before she was elected. When she talks about what women go through, I am sure that it is a true reflection of reality.
In this regard, as a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, I will make an extra effort to have that problem considered. I also call on her to ask women's groups to come and present their views to us so that we can make the government move on this.
As for seasonal jobs, I would answer her with an image and draw her attention to a particular aspect. This reform goes back to the vocabulary on welfare reform used by the defeated Liberal government in Quebec. They talked about bad welfare recipients, people who did not want to work. Now we are hearing the same thing. Seasonal workers who use unemployment insurance regularly will be penalized. After an unemployed person has made three claims in five years, he will be told: "You have a bad mark on your file. The next time you apply, you will get less." So he is made to feel a little guilty for a situation that he is not at all responsible for.
There are industries in which there will always be seasonal employment. In some regions of the country, forestry, agriculture and tourism will always be seasonal activities. There will never be year-round work available. Moreover, workers in these industries are not necessarily prepared to train for jobs which do not exist in their region.
If a person works in a restaurant for 15 or 18 weeks during the summer, you can train him to become a technician, but if there are no jobs for technicians in his region, you are wasting money. This is the conclusion reached by the OECD in a study on unemployment. In all the countries where attempts were made to increase employability without a job creation policy, these efforts were futile. The government will have some time to reconsider, and I hope it will.