Madam Speaker, we can see that a large number of Quebecers going on welfare every month, generally 40 per cent of the 5,000 individuals or so who join the ranks of welfare recipients, are young people. These numbers have increased since last summer. Why is that?
Since the government passed Bill C-17, to restrict access to unemployment insurance by increasing the qualifying period and reducing benefits as well as the numbers of weeks, people are suffering from this decision and many end up on welfare. I have asked the Minister of Human Resources Development repeatedly if he realized that his cuts to UI had particularly dire consequences for young people who then have to rely on social assistance.
The minister indicated that he wanted to move away from the passive assistance provided through unemployment insurance and toward active assistance. But one should not prevent the other. Nothing prevents us from helping young people who do not have sufficient training or helping them find a job, but when no jobs can be found for those who are already trained-many university graduates came to see me at my constituency office-why refuse them access to unemployment insurance? Why make their first few contacts with the job market more difficult because jobs are too short, because employment is temporary instead of being stable? Why force young people onto welfare?
We believe that the government should amend this clause of Bill C-17. It makes no sense, because the first contacts that young people have with the work force teaches them that they do not belong in it. How are the amounts accumulating in the unemployment insurance fund being used? In the last budget, an accounting trick allowed the government to use these funds to reduce the deficit. To a great extent, it is young people and women are the ones paying for this deficit reduction move.
This is not acceptable in a society like ours, and it is above all not acceptable for Quebec, where young people are considered the engine, the vital element, because, among other things, they will have families and will make it possible for the people of Quebec, which is an endangered species in North America, counting for barely more than 2 per cent of the population, to survive.
And now young people are swelling the welfare ranks because we have stripped them of even the glimmer of a hope of ever finding a job.