Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Minister of Human Resources Development tabled his unemployment insurance reforms. The minister told whoever wanted to listen that the purpose of his reforms was to adjust to the new demands of Canadian society and that it would be easier for the unemployed to re-enter the labour market.
However, now that the reforms have been tabled, it is clear that the impact will be far worse than we expected. The federal government hopes to reduce its deficit at the expense of women and young people.
Furthermore, in order to ensure that wealth is redistributed, Ottawa has decided to reduce the premiums of those who are well off by one billion dollars and, to make up for this reduction, increase the premiums of low-income workers by $900 million. Is that what the federal government calls justice and social equity?