Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment, to set the record straight. Reacting to my shaking my head-it was not even something I said-the minister went off on a tangent and said I did not know the history of Canada and the Constitution.
I shook my head to indicate that there was nothing in the Constitution originally, although of course the minister is right, in that the provinces agreed to a constitutional amendment that gave the federal government responsibility for unemployment insurance. I want to make that clear, and I think it was in 1941. I wanted to make that clear.
The minister is intelligent, dedicated, energetic and well intentioned, and he probably wants to improve things, except when he says that the hon. member for Mercier does not listen too well. I want to appeal to his own ability to listen, because in the days to come, it seems there may be a meeting between the minister and the Quebec Minister of Employment. I hope he will go to this meeting with an open mind. In fact, I hope both parties will.
This morning, he seemed to be open to discussion. I am not the Quebec Minister of Employment. I am in the opposition here in Ottawa. I am also a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development, and like the hon. member for Mercier, the minister's parliamentary secretary and the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, I travelled with the committee across Canada last year. I listened to people, and of course I do not share the assessment that was made of a consensus in this respect. I may remind the minister that everywhere there were demonstrations, and 75 or 80 per cent of the briefs boiled down to the following: Mr. Minister, no cuts, please. That is history. But yesterday in the Quebec National Assembly, and that will be the subject of my question to the minister-