Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the speech of the hon. member for Burin-St. George's. It is always interesting listening to him speak.
He mentioned the UI program. I would agree there have to be some changes for the UI program to continue. Of course the Reform Party has been talking about making the program actuarially sound. I would like his comments on that.
The member also raised an example of a UI situation. I would also like to bring to the attention of the House a situation in my own riding of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt which happened recently. We had a terrible forest fire in the Penticton region that devastated the area for quite some time over the holidays, our peak tourism season. God bless the people who came out to fight the forest fire. They were there to ensure the fire did not spread much farther than it did. We lost in the neighbourhood of a dozen homes; it could have been a lot worse.
Recently a company that does a controlled burn each year on a contract basis in the Merritt region went to the unemployment insurance people and said it needed some people to help with the controlled burn. Strangely enough the same people who fought the forest fire in Penticton were the people that year after year participated in the controlled burn. This year he could not get those people to come out. The UIC said that these people had been asked and they said: "No, we have had it with fires and working in the forests. We can do much better if we stay on UI for this period of time". This is an excellent example of abuse in the system.
What would the member do? What would be his suggestion to alleviate this situation?