Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague. I have here an OECD document entitled “The OECD Jobs Strategy”. It makes several recommendations. Some of these recommendations are to make work schedules more flexible, and to review unemployment packages and related benefits.
The report says further:
In order to bring more flexibility to the labour market in a number of countries, it was essential to make unemployment packages and other social benefits less generous, to tighten up eligibility rules.
The following quote can be found further in the report:
Canada is the only country which appears to have implemented the recommendations regarding the reduction of the level and length of benefits made as a result of the first set of studies.
Does this mean that the government is implementing international strategies dictated by the OECD in the belief that if benefits are too generous, workers will become lazy and will no longer want to work? People do not want handouts; they want work. That is abundantly clear.
We have seen the government make indiscriminate cuts without a care about their impact on families. I have people coming to my office who in February will experience the spring gap. They will not qualify for social assistance and their unemployment benefits will run out. What are they going to live on? Thin air? I believe the government is completely out of touch with the harsh economic realities in certain regions. It makes no sense whatsoever.
I ask the government to go further with this bill, it can do it. All summer long, we heard it say it could not do anything without introducing a bill. Here is that bill, but it does nothing. It is totally absurd. I am looking forward to my colleague's remarks on this.