Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank the hon. member for Mercier, as well as my colleagues from Lévis and Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, for the excellent work they did on this issue. Never before, during the last two years and a half, have we put so much work into a bill. Of course, we worked hard on other pieces of legislation, but particularly on this one. We did so for two main reasons. First, this legislation affects all the citizens from coast to coast, and especially the people in Quebec. Second, Bill C-12 goes directly after the poor and the destitute.
That is why the Bloc Quebecois has focused all of its efforts to try to reason with the government. We used some very solid arguments. I will not go over them again, we have mentioned them often enough. We have shown that this is not a good reform proposal. Today, I want to try to reach the hearts of my colleagues, and I hope they have some compassion left. In a democracy, the people are represented by those they chose to elect. But they have taken to the streets.
They do not want a mini-reform, they want this employment insurance bill, as it is called, to be completely withdrawn. The people who have taken to the streets are not beer drinkers, not professional agitators and certainly not cowards. Quite the opposite, these people are responsible citizens. But mostly, although these people want to work, they cannot find work year round. These are outstanding citizens. Some people in my riding and elsewhere have heard of Nelson Pilote, from Saint-Alexandre-des-Lacs, who is a tree harvester. In the summertime, he gets up at 4 a.m., brings
his chain saw with him to the forest and works until 5 or 6 p.m. He works hard. He has a nice family, five young children.
While he receives UI benefits, from the premiums he and his employer paid, he does not do any moonlighting. What does he do instead? Volunteer work. He coaches hockey and several other sports. He teaches young children and gives them a fresh outlook on life. He is not necessarily a PQ or a sovereignist partisan, but he puts his heart into it and he wants to live a decent life.
In Amqui, he gathered, not by himself, of course, but with the help of a few unions, 5,000 people, who came to demonstrate and ask for the withdrawal of Bill C-12 now before the House.
Also, I have a friend who is a bishop in Gaspé. He is not involved in politics either. He too joined the workers to ask, on behalf of his flock, that this bill be withdrawn because he knows that in Gaspé as in Matane and in Mont-Joli as well as in Amqui, people want to work but it is not so simple. Come and try to create jobs in our region! You will see that it is more complicated than you think.
Members are also aware that forestry jobs are the least costly to create. The Canadian government cut its $6.5 million a year grant to the East Plan, which created jobs, good jobs. They cut it. They also want to cut funding for the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, where year after year researchers make discoveries that are published throughout the world.
It seems to me that the government is cutting funding everywhere: for researchers who give hope to the young and for the most disadvantaged people, the poorest of the poor. And for women in our areas, especially the rural areas. Women who have seasonal jobs will suffer as well as seasonal and part-time workers.
I do not want to go over all the arguments again. Members know quite well that in our areas as elsewhere in Quebec and in the Atlantic Provinces, it is almost impossible for someone who enters the workforce to accumulate 910 hours of work. Only a few will be able to do it.
Yes, I appeal to my colleagues. Let us hope that our arguments will at least touch their hearts, if not their minds.
It is not easy for people who want to work and who will no longer be entitled to this employment insurance, that back home we call poverty insurance, because that is right where it will lead. Someone said to me: "Do you know that if this employment insurance comes to our regions, people will be worse off in a few years than they were during the '30s"? They will turn to welfare, of course, but they do not want to. People want to work.
You know, it is very hard on a person's morale to rely on welfare. I have known many men with families who, having lost their jobs and been on unemployment insurance for a year, have then unsuccessfully sought work and become completely discouraged. The whole family was affected. It is extremely hard for the children, and it then becomes society's problem. It is not just the individual's problem, the family's problem, but the community's or society's problem.
This is why I am appealing to my colleagues. There is still some time left. They can still vote against Bill C-12. I ask them with all my heart to think about their constituents. There were demonstrations in the Atlantic provinces as well. If we want to represent our constituents properly, how can we not listen to what they have to say? I find this tragic.
Of course, they can always say that if we do not listen to them, two years, six months down the road, they will throw us out. As you well know, Madam Speaker, in four or five years, a government in power can do a lot of stupid things, and you know that they have done their share. They are about to do it again. I think that this will be the worst yet, a terrible mistake, and it is workers, young people, women, in other words, the poorest members of our society, who will suffer the consequences. It is not just the individual who is affected, as I was saying earlier, but families, parishes, all of society. When apolitical people say that it does not make sense, I ask my colleagues across the way to sit up and take note.