Madam Speaker, I have listened carefully to the speech by the new Secretary of State for Rural Development, and I wish him good luck, despite my belief that the federal government has no business whatsoever interfering in this area.
I would invite him to speak to the Minister of Human Resources Development. With his responsibility for rural areas he is surely aware that, since employment insurance reform, there has been a serious problem that has to do with the rule of intensity. Seasonal workers are penalized by the deduction of 1% of their benefits every time they have used 20 weeks of employment insurance, which means that after three years, instead of receiving 55% of potential benefits, they will receive 50%.
Yesterday, the Minister of Human Resources Development gave an interview to a Moncton newspaper. She thinks that the rule of intensity must not be done away with, nor the period of benefits extended, because that is no solution. More employment must be created, and seasonal employment must be enabled to last longer.
I say to the secretary of state and to the minister “Why not do both at the same time?” When they state that the industry's season must be lengthened, it is as if they were telling people “You are not working longer because you do not want to.” The Secretary of State for Rural Development must surely know, and I hope he agrees with that view, that there is no one in Canada who does not want to work. This is not a situation where, contrary to what the Prime Minister said in the past, the unemployed are beer drinkers. That has been demonstrated. There are no more cheaters among the unemployed than there are in multinationals or elsewhere. Generally speaking, people do want to work.
It is not by hitting them on the head or by imposing unacceptable rules regarding minimum income that things will change. In rural areas, when a person works 15 or 20 weeks, if that person does not collect enough benefits, even if he or she has a job, even if he or she is among those who worked during the year, that person will still get poor because we do not have a good employment insurance program.
So, will the Secretary of State for Rural Development make representations to the Minister of Human Resources Development to have that situation changed, and is he not deeply upset that the throne speech says nothing on this issue?
It is important for the secretary of state to get the bureaucracy moving and force the government to stop viewing the employment insurance program strictly as a surplus generating scheme; this could have a positive impact in an area of federal jurisdiction. The EI system is also a tool for economic stabilization.
Will the secretary of state do that in the years to come?