Mr. Speaker, I think my distinguished colleague is totally disconnected from human reality in this country. She must surely live in a posh neighbourhood, and she probably does not meet her voters in the places where she should.
In 1997, Quebec paid $475 million more than it received. Federalists can no longer use the argument they relied on in 1980, when they tried to scare people by saying “We cannot separate from the rest of Canada, or else we will lose access to the unemployment insurance program”.
The hon. member spoke about poverty. I would like to know what she thinks of the people in my riding who work as volunteer firefighters. These people clean fire trucks, hoses, etc., on a volunteer basis. The fifteen or so volunteer firefighters in Black Lake spend hours of their free time doing that work and maintaining a volunteer firefighters unit in the community.
When they fight a fire, they are paid $14 or $15 per hour. There is a volunteer fireman who helped fight 12 fires. He suffered a shortfall of $1,534. Because he earned $526, the government knocked $1,534 off his benefits. This is a volunteer fireman who does volunteer work and who contributed $1,534 to the $20 billion accumulated surplus. Is this what we mean by poverty?
This government is taxing poor people to death in order to lower its deficit. EI contributions are too high, given the benefits paid by the government to the unemployed.