Mr. Speaker, I feel that it is my duty to take the floor today to support the motion put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Mercier.
We are now seeing the aftermath of the Martin budget presented last February. As we feared, and it is even worse in the opinion of many, the unemployment insurance reform hits the most vulnerable among us.
The people in my riding, Lotbinière, already have an axe to grind against the Minister, Mr. Axworthy, who, with his reform, has
deprived them of the services of the Victoriaville employment centre. In the middle of July, thousands of my constituents were by my side in an effort to save personalized services near their homes. We got the assurance that that minimum would be maintained.
However, since then, the minister has been avoiding me and any opportunity to meet with me in order to settle the issue. I can tell you this was a prelude to the harmful effects of the Liberal government's reform.
People were afraid, and rightly so, that their employment centre would become a mere booth, which would have forced them to drive over 100 kilometres to get person to person services; you can imagine their reaction now that the reform is truly coming to light.
Before dealing with manpower development, I would like to warn people against the series of measures that, for the most part, are to come into force on Canada Day, the 1st of July. It is already a sad day, the government chose the date well. The Axworthy reform will hit those most in need hardest-