There is no difference. The parliamentary leaders in the House of Commons know better than that. It is a real shame how the people of Cape Breton are being treated today. The Premier of Newfoundland, a good Liberal and a good friend of the Prime Minister, said that the people of the Atlantic provinces did not drop the Liberals, the Liberals dropped them. We could see that is what happened with employment insurance
The Liberals were in opposition in the spring of 1993. The present Prime Minister said at that time to some people in Quebec that the Conservative Party attacked the wrong people by cutting the employment insurance. They should attack the economy is what he said.
In March 2000 we heard the Prime Minister at the Liberal convention saying “We lost the Atlantic provinces because we cut the employment insurance. We have to give it back if we want some votes”. He did not say he wanted to give it back because he heard the people, the seasonal workers. That is not what he said. We might have said that was a good thought on his part and that the Liberals will make some changes because they now realize they have hurt families in this country from coast to coast to coast. That is not what they said. Now they are saying that the Atlantic is for sale. I have a surprise for them. The Atlantic is not for sale and our people in the Atlantic will not be bought out by the Liberals, I can tell hon. members that much.
I remember not too long ago the Liberal caucus in the Atlantic provinces said “Let us catch the wave, and to catch the wave we have to change the employment insurance because when we changed the employment insurance we lost the Atlantic. Let us catch the wave”.
I hope the Liberals catch the wave and that they start to understand that in the Atlantic provinces we are still part of this country. We are human beings in the Atlantic provinces and we have kids who have to go to school. The kids will go hungry because of the decisions of this government. The government dropped them, that is what it did.
It is a shame what the Liberals have done to Cape Bretoners. It is a shame what they did in my riding where people are caught in the gap and then left on the street. Shame on the Liberals for what they have done to the people in the Atlantic provinces and across the country who are not fortunate enough to have a full time job. Shame on the Liberals for what they have done.
The Liberals should really be ashamed of the way they treated the people who are not lucky enough to have a full time job. I offer as an example all those who have seasonal jobs in the area of tourism. The New Brunswick provincial government is now telling loggers “In the short term, the only solution is to go on welfare”. I am sure the same thing is going on in Cape Breton.
The attitude of today's governments has to change. I know that people alone will be able to bring about this change by putting the Liberals out of office once and for all and by showing them the real road so they will understand what it means to be a family in misery, instead of all of them coming from Ontario, where things are prosperous and where they are lucky enough to have people who work all year long.
If they go to northern Ontario, perhaps they will understand too. Even Liberal colleagues say that people have been mistreated by the Liberals.
I hope that this amendment will be referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development so that we can look at the human side of this situation and the way people will be affected by what the government has in mind.
I hope the government will agree to this amendment and send it to the committee on human resources because we have to look at it as a human problem for the people of Cape Breton.