Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question, but I am not sure why anyone who suggests prudent spending on these programs can be accused of wanting to cut people off. That is a rather extreme interpretation of what I said about spending the money in ways that really benefit people, in a prudent manner, in a defensible manner, in a way that is accountable to the people who should be able to count on these moneys to do some good.
What do we have under this TAGS program? We have snow crab fishermen who make over $200,000 a year being given extra money from a program that should be benefiting the people who are trying to get out of devastated industries. We have people who have perfectly good jobs in fish processing plants saying: "This is an easier program. This is easy money. Why do we not just quit working and go on this program? We are able to do it".
Will that be helping people? No, it is not helping the people in need. It is wasting money that should be helping people in need. It is the waste and the inefficiency and the ineffectiveness we are talking about, and we are trying to get the government to correct this.
This money was supposed to train people to get out of devastated industries and find jobs somewhere else. As this member rightly says, we should try to help them. What is happening? The money that was supposed to go to training people is now going into income support for people, many of whom do not even need that money and should not be entitled to the money.
Yes, we should be trying to help people if we can. When we have a program that is clearly being mismanaged and ineffectively administered, is helping people who do not need help and not helping people who do, and which has not yet created one long term job for anybody on the program, it should be criticized not just by members in the opposition but by the hon. member who comes from that part of the country where people are outraged. The government is taking money that could and should be helping and it is instead being totally wasted.
That kind of help cannot take effect over night. Any sensible person realizes that. When there is instance after instance where the program is being mismanaged and wasted and not helping people, then we should all be on our feet demanding to know why, demanding accountability of the department and saying on behalf of the people get it right, get it right now.