Mr. Speaker, I was leading up to the problems being experienced by our city with the closing of the Fruit of the Loom plant. This has meant lost jobs for 650 women, on top of the hundreds of workers who lost theirs with the closing of Tripap a few years ago.
Today, these workers are suffering because a decision by Human Resources Development Canada, through its minister, was upheld, which is contrary to a unanimous recommendation by the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development relating to older workers and the return of POWA.
I would ask my hon. colleague from Vancouver East what she thinks of the minister's attitude and the potential power of the Minister of Finance to remedy the situation by ensuring that his coming budget contains special allocations for dealing with this dramatic situation.
It is all very well to be concerned about security at our borders, but people are experiencing systematic insecurity. There is no longer any bridge between employment insurance and social assistance. There is a very noticeable gap, and workers aged 55 and over are totally overwhelmed and forced to dig into their own financial resources.