Mr. Speaker, I also would like to support the amendments by my colleague for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup dealing with the premium increases. Of course, he wants to come back to the previous level of premiums for the workers as well as for the businesses.
I also support the amendments by my colleague for Mercier, who is afraid that the Minister of Human Resources Development will use the Unemployment Insurance Bill to increase his power over regions where pilot projects will be implemented.
That is why she suggests that these amendments or clauses be at least approved by a resolution of the House of Commons. There is also the amendment by my colleague for Saint-Hyacinthe, who naturally proposes to delete clause 28. For the benefit of our audience, clause 28 has to do with the number of weeks one will now have to work to be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.
I want to remind members that this bill reduces the benefit period, increases the qualifying period and reduces the benefits from 57 to 55 per cent of the claimant's average weekly insurable earnings.
The role of a member of Parliament is to represent the opinion of his or her constituents, among other things. Like my colleague from Matapédia, I met with many people over the last few months and I will use the testimony of those people who came to my constituency office in the riding of Lévis to tell me why they were opposed to these cuts in the unemployment insurance program. They are very significant cuts, $1.3 billion a year. That is $300 million more than the infrastructure project that the government intends to implement in cooperation with the municipalities and the provincial governments. By the way, if there is a level of government for which this job creation program will be less costly, it is the federal government since it will be able to recoup part of its investment through income tax and GST revenues.
But I do not want to stray away from the subject, which is unemployment insurance. So, $1.3 billion in cuts is very significant. What are my constituents telling me? First of all, I will tell you about an important group, the workers of MIL Davie. Some members opposite are smiling, but I can assure you that there is no reason to smile. The members opposite should listen instead of smiling. They do not bother to listen and they keep laughing when we deal with the plight of hundreds of workers at MIL Davie. The workforce there was 3,000 strong last year, but the number of workers is down to only 1,200 now and should drop to a mere 700 or 800 in the coming weeks. The very survival of the MIL Davie shipyard is in jeopardy. Why? Because, among other things, the Minister of Industry, as he confirmed today, does not intend to implement new programs to help military industries convert to civil production.
The government turns a deaf ear to MIL Davie concerning the Magdalen Islands ferry. It turns a deaf ear concerning the smart ship too, when it could help this industry which gave jobs to 3,000 workers last year. When the Liberal Party was writing and publicizing its red book, there were 3,000 workers there when the Prime Minister came to meet them one week before the end of the election campaign. He told them he would look after the shipyard. What did he do? Nothing. In that same campaign, the present Prime Minister said during the leaders' debate that he did not intend to cut social programs. What does he do now? Through Bill C-17, he slashes $1.3 billion in the unemployment insurance program. So much for the MIL Davie workers.
Construction workers also fell on hard times; they are still going through hard times. They experience seasonal unemployment. They came to my riding office, and to those of all members in my area, including that of the Prime Minister, to tell him that this situation is intolerable.
The situation is problematic in the construction industry. Some degree of security is required. Unemployment insurance provided that security. Now it is being cut. At the time, jobs were created through the job development program which was funded in part by UI funds. Hundreds of organizations in Quebec and Canada are waiting for an answer from the government in
the form of job development programs. Months have gone by and they are still waiting.
You know, not all the blame lays with this government. Just before the election, the previous government had emptied the tills of the job development program and incurred commitments that carried over into the current fiscal year. What does this government do? It announces a social program reform sometimes used to cover up a certain lack of decisiveness, but pilot projects are supposedly essential. As far as youth programs are concerned, I am the youth spokesman and young people have told me how precarious their situation is in Quebec, with 19 per cent of workers between the ages of 20 and 24 out of a job. That is 19 per cent. In Canada, 400,000 young people are unemployed and, during that time, the government introduces bills to tell them to study longer at the price of getting further into debt. UI benefit rates are reduced while the qualifying period is extended. At some point, young people who got jobs best described as menial, sometimes a combination of part-time jobs found here and there, find themselves incapable of meeting the UI entrance requirement. What are they facing then? Welfare.
What are they offering? The Youth Service Corps. After starting at $61 a week in the fall, 2,500 young Canadians will see their weekly salary rise to $150. They then dare to cut unemployment insurance.
When this government was in opposition, they fought with the former Minister of Employment whom I can name, Mr. Valcourt-