Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Obviously, the situation in the riding of Matapédia—Matane is unique. It is the same for the Gaspé. The two RCMs of Matapédia and Matane were always considered part of the Gaspé for the purposes of the Coalition-chômage, because the situation was very serious.
In our regions, the official rate of unemployment is 22% or 23%, but 40% to 50% of the public relies on employment insurance or income security in the winter.
What we desperately want in our region is a real employment insurance regime that will cover people not just for 38, 42 or 44 weeks, but for the whole year. When people manage to work at least a certain number of weeks, it should be possible to provide them with security that will last 365 days of the year. That is what we want. We want a real employment insurance regime. The regime was set up to protect such people, but it is not doing so right now.
I would add, for the benefit of my colleague, that another very important issue, one which I intend to fight for personally, is that of young people. As I was saying earlier, in the riding of Matapédia—Matane, the major industries are forestry, agriculture, fishing and tourism. These are all industries where work is almost exclusively seasonal.
When young people graduate from tourism courses, particularly in my colleague's riding, where there is an institution offering such training, they can never collect employment insurance because they are never able to accumulate the required number of weeks. So they leave the region and head for places where they can find work.