Madam Speaker, I have a few questions for my distinguished colleague, the hon. member for London—Fanshawe, who is also the president of the Canada-Ireland committee.
The hon. member introduced himself earlier as a teacher of 22 years and a councillor in his lovely town for 11 years. To become a teacher, one must have one essential quality and that is fairness.
Had he had favorites in his class, our colleague, the hon. member for London—Fanshawe would certainly not have had such a long career because, as he knows, there is nothing that students hate more than unfairness.
How can this member explain that Ontario and Quebec have their own police forces, namely the Sûreté du Québec in Quebec and the OPP in Ontario, while in the other provinces, police services are provided to municipalities by the RCMP?
The federal government bills the other provinces, or the RCMP, for only a fraction of the actual costs. As a result, with 60% of the population, Ontario and Quebec pay 60% of the costs incurred by municipalities and provinces served by the RCMP. That is one example of unfairness.
Had he been this unfair as a teacher or city councillor, he would have been kicked out. When hit with a claim from Ontario and Quebec, which pay for part of the police services provided outside these two provinces, his government refuses to pay up.
Douglas Young, who used to sit over there, did not care about poor people. He unilaterally abolished POWA, a program designed to help older laid-off workers. He abolished it unilaterally, without consulting any province, simply stating he would come up with another program, a superior program of course, to replace it with. We are still waiting.
In my riding, the average age of the 305 workers who were laid off at the asbestos mine is over 52. A good number of these workers contributed to employment insurance for 25, 30 or 32 years. Now they are only being given 55% of their insurable earnings.
Worse still, Clermont Bégin, a 63-year-old former asbestos mine worker, has seen his EI benefits cut off by the human resources development office in Thetford because he did not tour the riding every day to look for a job. How can you expect the Liberal Party of Canada to instil a sense of justice in this country?
I now go back to my main question to the distinguished member for London—Fanshawe. Does he find it fair that Ontario and Quebec pay for 25% or 30% of the costs of police services in municipalities and other provinces without compensation from the federal government? Better yet, if the federal government charged municipalities and provinces for every dollar spent, then the money demanded from the Treasury Board for the justice budget would be much lower than the current $193 million.