Madam Speaker, I know that across this country we have a lot of different interests and a lot of different concerns. However, it amazes me sometimes that some of us in one area of the country can become such experts on someplace else. It is one of the facts in the House.
I have a question for the hon. member. I appreciate his sincerity in trying to deal with these issues. As with the previous speaker, I support the concept that we have of attempting to put together what I call small weeks or grouping of hours in areas of high unemployment.
In Atlantic Canada, in particular, we have a good number of industries that rely upon workers for very short periods of time.
I was home during Thanksgiving week and it rained every day of that week. Fishing boats go out to sea, but sometimes they cannot harvest fish every day of the week. If we want our fish factories and our smaller firms to work in Atlantic Canada we have to provide an opportunity for people to put their hours together to constitute weeks for unemployment insurance purposes.
Is the member aware of this problem and the concerns that we have? I point out to him that it was not the workers who came to us in the Atlantic caucus asking for small weeks or days to be put together, rather it was the industries in Atlantic Canada that were having difficulty providing 40 hours of employment for X number of weeks for their workers.
Perhaps he could relate to the House his concept of this problem and how he and his party would deal with it.