Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Lévis, for his analysis of the situation. I agree with him wholeheartedly; we are in a very distressing situation. It is true. I cannot understand why, given the seriousness of the situation, the Liberal Party does not co-operate more and does not try to give us some explanations.
I agree with my colleague that a society with so many unemployed, a society where there are no jobs is an ailing society. What do we have to offer? There is only confusion in everything that is proposed.
Last Saturday, I listened to the Prime Minister's speech where he explained that the advantage of the unemployment insurance system is that it takes money from the rich provinces to give it to the poor ones. But that is not what they are doing. Maybe they do take money from the rich provinces, but they use it to pay the debt and reduce the deficit. Instead of creating jobs with that money, they apply it to the deficit in order to create more commissions dealing with provincial jurisdictions, in order to interfere in other provincial areas, spend again and generate duplication and squandering.
There is confusion in the bill we are debating now, but there is confusion in other areas also. We clearly saw that this week with regard to the Constitution. Last Saturday, they had found the idea of the century: the homeland of the French language. But three or four days later, that wonderful idea had fallen by the wayside and they might go back to the distinct society. It is the same in many areas.
In my riding, we are facing a problem that maybe my colleague could talk about. It is the SEA program, the Self-Employment Assistance program. It is dreadful. They want us to believe this program is meant to create jobs, but in many cases the only result of that assistance is to cut unemployment insurance benefits and send the people back to welfare. They tell people that if they have a good idea, they will help them to implement it and create their own job. But they ask for a plan and when the plan is presented, they tell the unemployed: "Well you were working on your plan and therefore you were not available and looking for work, so we are withdrawing your unemployment benefits".
There have been many such cases. There is always duplication and waste. They talk about replacing unemployment insurance with employment insurance, but that does not deal with the problem. What they are really doing is reducing the number of recipients in order to have more money for other projects. Instead of using the money to create jobs, they make the unemployed pay for past spending.
I would like my colleague to explain the SEA a bit further. Did they have the chance to discuss it in committee? Could we not suggest that when they want to give an unemployed person the opportunity to create his or her own job, they should let that person do so in peace?