Mr. Speaker, I am very excited to rise today for two reasons, one being that it is the first opportunity I have to speak in the House since I was re-elected. The other reason has to do with the relevance and importance of the employment insurance issue to my region.
I rise not only as a parliamentarian, but also as a former bush pilot who has had to rely on employment insurance in the past. I will put the problem in context.
What we have experienced in the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean area since last July has to do with the fact that, under the act, employment insurance zones have to be reviewed every five years. I did not lose any time in making representations, saying that the status quo had to be maintained, which meant that people had to work a minimum of 420 hours to be eligible for 33 weeks of benefits. I was not the only one thinking this way, since other parliamentary colleagues shared that opinion.
In my region, Human Resources Development Canada, through its economist, recommended to the minister that the status quo be maintained. Why? Not just for the sake of it, but rather because it matched the reality of our region.
To our surprise, when the HRDC data were made public on July 1, it was not 420 hours any more that people needed to work to qualify for 33 weeks of benefits but rather 525 hours, and for how many weeks?