Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. We in the Bloc Quebecois are not against the infrastructure program. We are against it being the solution the
Liberal government seems to have found to deal with a very serious problem in this country with 1,600,000 unemployed people.
I think this is easy to demonstrate. The government says it will create 45,000 temporary jobs, and we must remind you that when they talk about jobs, they talk about maintaining jobs; 45,000 jobs created and maintained for 1,600,000 unemployed workers. I do not see how the hon. member for Peterborough can think this will solve in any way the situation in his riding. Assuming that unemployment should be around 10 per cent-it is now around 13 or 14 per cent in my riding of Trois-Rivières-it is no reason to rest easy and tell ourselves that the government is up to the task.
Especially since-and I see the Minister of Human Resources is here-this same government is going after the unemployed rather than unemployment, the poor instead of poverty itself. We hear the government tell the poorest among us, those who are already in a bad spot, because unemployed workers are in a bad spot, that from now on they will get 55 per cent instead of 57 per cent of what they were earning and work longer to receive less, for a shorter period. I think they are going after those who are poorest.
They say we must modernize and revamp-the words they use are exceptionally subtle in denoting intellectual honesty-our social programs. We do not know how but we do know one thing as I speak: the government was able to figure out how much it will cost in two or three years, so it can spare the public purse by going after the unemployed and the poor: $7.5 billion, including $5.5 billion in unemployment insurance. We know that already. That is what I rise against when I hear such comments.
First of all, we have no real solution for reducing unemployment since the so-called infrastructure program is not a solution, it is not even a half-measure. At the same time, the government is going after those who are already hard pressed while leaving the richest Canadians alone. They create committees to examine whether their measures are justified or not. The time has come to review our thinking because the underlying process, as everyone is increasingly aware, is the disappearance of the middle class, like in an underdeveloped country with few rich people and a lot of poor people. This is what we think.