Madam Speaker, I think it is important to debate of this motion. I support it fully, and I thank my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois for introducing it.
As my colleague mentioned earlier, there are serious problems in our region. The Liberal Party member mentioned earlier the dependence of the unemployment insurance—which they want to call employment insurance—system.
I should ask a question, perhaps. When you live in a region where the economy is primarily seasonal, people depend on employment insurance in order to live and to eat. This is dependence. They have a choice: either employment insurance or meagre social welfare. Most of them are not eligible for social welfare if one member of the family earns $800 or more a month.
From what I understand, the government does not like having people depend on the employment insurance system for sustenance. In other words, it says that they should starve. As a member of Parliament, I disagree. Having something to eat is not a privilege in this country, it is a right.
When I get calls from people in my riding who receive $39 a week from employment insurance I can see there is a problem, especially when there is a surplus of nearly $12 billion in the employment insurance fund, which was paid by employers and employees.
The government says it is going to take it, and we will use the word “take” today, to pay its deficit, that it will decide to pay a debt, the deficit, on the back of the unemployed, people who have lost their job, small and medium businesses that have closed their doors. New Brunswick's economy has lost a lot of dollars because of the cuts to pay the deficit.
Many businesses today say “enough is enough”. People don't have money any more. So now more people than just the seasonal workers are suffering. There are seniors as well. If we look at the example of the man making $39 a week at home, with his 73 year-old mother looking after him. Do you think that this woman is earning enough to provide for her son?
Don't tell me that cuts don't hurt anyone; they hurt everyone. Take a good look of how much money it costs for our health care program today because of people who are stressed and end up in hospital because they cannot find a job and can no longer get employment insurance. It is easy for us, who make $64,000 and $70,000 a year to say: “No you do not get paid for three months of the year”.
Today, I am not hungry, but I have experienced hunger. I am not hungry today and I may forget what happens at home, if I like, as some people on the other side have done in creating reforms without thinking. There are children who go to school without breakfast, who will have no lunch or supper.
And yet they are saying people depend on employment insurance, that employment insurance should be eliminated because it creates dependence. I say that I was proud to depend on employment insurance when I needed it. I was unemployed until June 2, 1997. I needed employment insurance to feed my son and daughter. I am not going to turn around and tell people at home that they will lose their right. I can guarantee them today that I will fight to the last, because what the government is doing to our people is utterly inhuman.