Mr. Speaker, I listened with attention to the very aggressive speech by the Minister of Human Resources Development. He launched several attacks on the Bloc Quebecois. He occasionally uses progressive terms to outline conservative, sometimes right-wing policies.
Instead of tackling unemployment, the budget goes after the unemployed themselves. The Bloc Quebecois worries about the most disadvantaged in our society: unemployed workers and welfare recipients. I come from the union movement, Mr. Speaker, and we are not alone in our fight against the minister's budget and his cuts to unemployment insurance. I had feedback from three Quebec unions, namely the FTQ, the CEQ and the CNTU. I also heard from the Canadian Labour Congress. Over two million Canadians are very concerned about the govern-
ment's budget. The president of the FTQ, Clément Godbout, said, "To effectively tackle the debt and deficit problem, we must put people back to work by creating jobs. However, this concern does not appear in the budget". For the FTQ, this is incomprehensible. Not only does the government not do anything to create jobs, but it is hitting the unemployed very hard by taking $6 billion over the next three years from the unemployment insurance fund.