Mr. Speaker, I shall try to be brief; I see others wanting to speak. I am itching to respond to the hon. colleague across the way. I think he is still a bit blinded by the aftermath of the October 30 referendum debate.
The referendum is settled. That is not the issue today. I have two little questions for the hon. colleague across the way. In his speech he mentioned that the new bill would entitle seasonal workers to up to three weeks additional benefits. I would like to see him do a demonstration of A plus B equals C for this, because that is not what people have understood the reform to mean.
A second little question of arithmetic. He says that young people would be better off with this new reform, because now they will have deductions taken off from the very first hour they work. They had to work fifteen hours in the past before deductions started, but 910 hours divided by 15 makes about 60 weeks. First of all, when will they be eligible to apply for unemployment insurance? Second, students are deemed not to be available for work. If young
people study full time in the winter and work only on weekends, will they have enough time for entitlement?
Did they state in this unemployment insurance reform that it will allow students to collect unemployment insurance while still at school? I think that the hon. member was talking through his hat. He was perhaps just a bit too blinded by the political option I am defending, but I would remind him that what we wanted to discuss today was unemployment.