Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore well, having been on the human resources development committee with her for the past two and half years, ever since the Liberal government was elected.
I know how sensitive she generally is, and I know she feels a bit uncomfortable when she comes back to the House to tell us what we have heard several times in committee from the mouths of staff members of the Department of Human Resources Development. I would ask, on another level, how she felt as a woman who has always shown sensitivity and humanity, after hearing the testimony of the Fédération des femmes du Québec and other organizations representing women across Canada, who told us that this unemployment insurance reform made no sense, because it would penalize women.
Yes, with the hours principle, some 5 per cent of women will perhaps be able to take advantage of unemployment insurance in future, but 25 per cent will be excluded. The hon. member knows the reason: many who used to need 15 hours of work per week or
less will now need many more hours to be eligible for UI. In my region in particular, people will have to work a minimum of 26 weeks, at seventeen and a half hours a week. What is more, they will all have to contribute, but will not all be able to draw benefits.
The situation is so bad that the Fédération des femmes du Québec is contemplating going to court to raise the issue of discrimination against women, to prevent the act from being implemented. The same thing goes for young people.
I have trouble recognizing my colleague's usual character when she takes such a position, when she finds it normal to be harder on young people who have never yet drawn any benefit from unemployment insurance. Now she is letting herself be influenced by the arguments of the department's employees, who told her young people are potential cheats, potential abusers of the system.
I am appealing to her sensitivity, I am appealing to her sympathetic ear as a member of the human resources development committee, where 75 or 80 per cent of the men and women who came before us in the last two and a half years told us this was not acceptable. I am trying to find out, and I really do wonder, if she feels right about her party's line.