Mr. Speaker, my first response to this remark is this, and I think it is important. The member asked me why we have not read the reform proposal from cover to cover, why we do not have all the details.
There is a contradiction between the member and his government. The government has used closure to limit the debate to three hours on Monday. It is muzzling us because it does not want a real debate on this bill at second reading. It is doing that because it wants to hide this reform before the Christmas holidays, so that we will have to go home without having had the time to show Canadians that it is unacceptable.
About the $800 million, it is obvious that it is not $800 million at all since it is just money being transferred from the consolidated revenue fund and the unemployment insurance fund. The government has tried all week to confuse us on this issue, getting quite confused itself in the answers of the various ministers. It is certainly not today that it will succeed in convincing us.
I want to make a last comment. It is simple and obvious. Go back to your ridings to explain to the people that the 910 hour minimum requirement is reasonable. Ask your constituents if they think it is reasonable to require that people who participate in the unemployment insurance program for the first time work a minimum of 910 hours in order to become eligible. You will all come back with the same answer after the Christmas break, or maybe even next week.
Is it reasonable to require that these new workers-I am talking about our young people, about women who enter the job market, about immigrants who come to Canada-work a minimum of 910 hours when the previous requirement was 300 hours and when the highest requirement for people who are already contributing to the program is 700 hours? Is it reasonable to impose a 910 hour minimum requirement to those people to whom we claim to want to give an incentive to work, when it is obvious that this kind of measure will do exactly the opposite? We will see within a year that a vast majority of people will be discouraged. This will stimulate the underground economy and force Canadians onto welfare.
If the government has not understood that, it will have to make some adjustments; otherwise it will have to face a lot of angry people. As Gilles Vigneault once said, "it will have quite a storm on its hands".