Mr. Speaker, there are people for whom causing the loss of jobs or unemployment insurance benefits is not a major problem. But it is for us.
The impact on workers from eastern Canada and Quebec will then be considerable. Taking measures that penalize a specific region is dishonest and illogical. Those taxpayers pay taxes and contribute to the unemployment insurance system as much as other Canadian taxpayers. They give their share but do not get much in return.
Once again, the federal government's approach shows us the importance of acting quickly to put an end to these irregularities. A sovereign Quebec could very well administer its unemployment insurance system. The cuts, or even the savings that the federal government is trying to achieve show us how our federal system is totally absurd, with its duplication that is costing Quebecers and Canadians millions of dollars every year. The Liberals cut where it is most painful because unemployment insurance recipients will be the first victims of this economic chaos.
Let us have a look to the so-called jobs creation that is supposed to be generated by the premium reduction. At this point, the premium rate is $3.07 per $100 of income. The Liberals intend to reduce the premiums to $3.00 on January 1, 1995. It should be reminded to Quebecers and Canadians that it is the Liberals who raised and voted in December the increase from $3.00 to $3.07.
The Liberals figure that the reduction next year will result in the creation of 40,000 new jobs in 1996. There is no need for a comprhensive financial analysis to understand that there will be no job creation and that we will only maintain existing jobs. These are two very different notions that the Liberals do not seem to understand.
Let us summarize in a simple way how unemployment insurance premiums went up and down. In 1993, they were at $3.00 for every $100 of income. In 1994, they were raised to $3.07 per $100. And they were supposed to reach $3.30 per $100 by 1995.
The new plan of the government is the following: $3.00 per $100 in 1993, $3.07 in 1994 and down again $3.00 in 1995. So we are back to the rate of 1993. Logically, as said Einstein, nothing is lost and nothing is created, but the Liberals do not understand that.
That is not the way the Liberals figure it. According to them, if the previous calculation formula had been kept, we would have lost 9,000 jobs in 1994 and 31,000 others in 1995.
By bringing the premiums back to $3.00 in 1995, the Liberals figure that 9,000 jobs will be saved in 1994 and 35,000 more in 1995, for a total of 40,000 jobs created. This is totally false. As was said previously, a simple calculation gives a grand total of zero. As a matter of fact, the increase decided by the Liberals for the current year has brought a loss of 9,000 jobs. If premiums get back to their 1993 rate of $3.00, we will only recover 9,000 jobs. Quite a number! Therefore, we are not talking here about 40,000 new jobs but about 31,000 jobs protected for 1995 and 9,000 others lost the previous year but recovered.
We should not try to mislead the public with such a vain promise. People are not so easily tricked any more. We must stop offering them empty shells and address the real problems. It is true that unemployment is a serious problem in Quebec and in Canada and we must not pretend we can solve it so easily.
The government must stop believing it can be the sole source of job creation. As we said before, small and medium-sized businesses are and will remain the main source of job creation and we could reduce the unemployment rate, for example, by increasing government assistance to those employers. Everybody is eagerly awaiting the recovery but unfortunately it is a long time coming.
Through its actions, the government must show a real will to fight down the economic difficulties that people of Quebec and Canada have been facing for too many years already. The trust they put in their leaders is not unconditional and we must show our constituents that the government really wants to get the country out of this economic abyss in which it is sinking and this is not what it is doing.
They must stop making empty promises and developing legislations which have negative financial impacts on the public. They must instead show they really want to get out of this economic impasse.
You might say that we criticize without proposing any solutions. Not so. My colleague from Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup has proposed amendments to Bill C-17 which could help reduce job losses.
For example, why not lower the contribution to $3 per $100 starting June 1, 1994, instead of waiting until January 1, 1995? This would mean 9,000 jobs, about 9,000 families who would not have to wait another six months. Can we afford 9,000 more unemployed? Certainly not. Do you not think that workers would prefer a salary rather than unemployment insurance payments, also reduced by Bill C-17 I might add?
To conclude, we are faced with a bill which is unacceptable for a large portion of voters. We should stop trying to make people believe that they have something to gain, where there is in fact nothing to gain. The people will not be fooled again by the government. What they want is a real economic recovery, they want real jobs. Let us proceed towards the economic upturn that the population of my riding and Quebec has been expecting for too long now.