Mr. Speaker, I am proud to tell this House that the Service d'entraide Basse-Ville is celebrating 25 years of community work in my riding.
The record of this not for profit organization is simply remarkable. In 25 years, volunteers have distributed approximately three million pieces of clothing, cooked hundreds of thousands of meals, and repaired, remodelled and patched all sorts of things.
Hundreds of organizations like this one can be found in my riding. This level of involvement reflects how generous the community is, of course, but also, and more importantly, how extensive the needs are.
The government absolutely must reconsider the restrictions recently imposed by Human Resources Canada on socioeconomic organizations. Hiring personnel to support the work of volunteers will be extremely difficult in the future, as these organizations will be denied access to HRC programs because of the new criteria. This is yet another sign of this government's insensitivity.