Mr. Speaker, first I want to wish you good luck in your new position as Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. I am sure the future holds interesting promises.
Second, I wish to thank the electors of Acadie—Bathurst who have put their trust in me for a second mandate as their representative in the House of Commons. I have always said that it was an honour and a privilege to represent the people of Acadie—Bathurst.
It is also a pleasure to rise today in the House to speak to Bill C-2. This bill was long in coming. Yet, as I will explain later, it does not go far enough. It was long awaited by those who have to rely on employment insurance benefits because of the EI economic region they live in.
As we know, legislation was passed in 1996, which may even be responsible for my getting elected in 1997, because of changes that the Liberals had brought to employment insurance. Members will remember that my predecessor, Doug Young, introduced changes to employment insurance and described people back home as lazy and do-nothings, people who did not want to work. He did not defend the interests of our region.
We ended up with a bill on employment insurance similar to the one before us today, which needs to be amended.
Bill C-2 now before us is an unfortunate one. In May 2000, through a motion that I had introduced in the House of Commons, I made a request to change employment insurance. My colleague and neighbour, the hon. member for Miramichi—there did not seem to be any problems in Miramichi—asked that changes be made to the EI plan rather than to the legislation.
The House passed my motion unanimously. All members present in the House of Commons supported my motion requesting that changes be made to the employment insurance plan. In October, with Bill C-34, we proposed changes to the EI plan. Why was it not passed? Because the Liberals preferred to wait till the last minute, because they knew that the Canadian Alliance was against all changes to the plan.
The Canadian Alliance had its leader come to Bathurst, New Brunswick at the Keddy's Hotel to meet the Alliance candidate, Jean Gauvin. The day before, the Alliance leader had said in western Canada “No changes to EI. There should even be more cuts”. Once in New Brunswick, he told Jean Gauvin, his candidate, that if the Canadian Alliance were elected it would save EI and help Atlantic Canadians. He was speaking from both side of his mouth.
The next day, in Hamilton, Ontario, he said “EI will be cut in Atlantic Canada. These people have to be put back to work. They do not want to work and are dependent on employment insurance”.
Again this morning, we heard what the Canadian Alliance member had to say.
The Canadian Alliance does not understand our country. It does not understand working men and women. It does not understand the jobs in the country. It is time it got out of Alberta and B.C. and came down to the Atlantic.
I hope that we go to committee. I hope the parliamentary committee travels across the country. I will invite it to come to my home area. I hope Jean Gauvin will have the guts to sit in the hall and listen to the Canadian Alliance's feelings on employment insurance.
That party's leader said it would not change EI and that if elected it would protect the working people. The Alliance is two-faced. It was two-faced when it said that if elected it would refuse the pension plan. Now its members must look at it again for the good of their families. That is what they are saying now.
That party's leader said he would never take up residence in Stornoway because it was a grassroots party, and he moved into Stornoway. He said he would never use a limousine and he used one. I am sick and tired of listening to how the Alliance feels about our country and especially how it treats working people.
I will now switch topics because I do not want to spend more time on the Canadian Alliance. The Liberals are the ones who made the changes. They listened to the Reform too much when it was in the House of Commons.
We have the example of Hamilton, Ontario, right now. Workers went on strike. When the strike was over the company decided the workers had nothing to do with the strike and wanted them to return to the 85% level of production needed. They punished them by not allowing them to collect employment insurance.
The Liberal government supports Stelco which is against steelworkers local 5328. That type of program is against working people. It is not acceptable.
The surplus in the employment insurance fund is $32 billion and all of it was taken right out of the pockets of workers without their permission. I have put it this way because I am not permitted to use the word that comes to mind, although according to the definition in the dictionary, it is stealing. That is what it is; $32 billion was taken from men and women who have lost their jobs, the least well off in our society, who have no means of defending themselves, who cannot afford big name lawyers to take their case to court. These people cannot defend themselves.
It is a disgrace what the government says in the throne speech:
Now Canadians must undertake another national project—to ensure that no Canadian child suffers the debilitating effects of poverty.
It is a disgrace because 1.4 million children do not have enough to eat. These children are hungry today. What does the government say in the paragraph just before this one? It says:
There was a time when losing a job also meant immediate loss of income for workers and their families. And so Canadians created Employment Insurance.
The government should have gone on to say that these people were robbed by the Liberals. It should have said so in its throne speech because that is what happened. What the government did was a disgrace.
In October, not long after a motion to make changes to the employment insurance plan was introduced and approved in the House and the Liberal government said it would amend Bill C-34, it called an election.
With all due respect, the members from Madawaska—Restigouche, Beauséjour, Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine and my opponent, Bernard Thériault, all said “We want to be in the Liberal Party. We want to be in the governing party because we want to be part of the government so that we can change things”.
Bill C-2 is exactly the same as the one introduced before the election. This is a disgrace. It really is disgraceful to hear candidates like Bernard Thériault say to the population in the Caraquet area that when the Prime Minister came for a visit in Belledune, he did more in five minutes than I had done in three and a half years.
The people from the Acadian peninsula and Acadie—Bathurst did not believe that. This is why he did not get elected. People woke up and decided they would not be bought for 5%. This is what happened in my area.
How many times have I said in the House that there is a big difference between a seasonal worker and somebody working in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. The situation is completely different for a seasonal worker.
The Liberals must realize that it is impossible to find cod under the ice in Chaleur Bay in February. They must realize that blueberries cannot be picked under the snow. They must get this into their heads.
It is about time the Liberals understood that we cannot cut Christmas trees in July. This is the way the industry works in the region. Given the quotas imposed by the government, we cannot cut wood in winter in our region, in New Brunswick and in Atlantic Canada.
As I have said many times already, the people in major urban centres are always happy to receive our 2x4s to build their houses but people in my area have no choice. When the fishing season is over, it is over. There are no other jobs. Putting the cart before the horse is not the way to go. Let us put the horse in front of the cart and be sensible about the way we work at improving the economy so that people can find work. Do not take away their last resort, the only way they have to put food on the table.
It is totally unacceptable that in 2001 children are going to school on an empty stomach. The throne speech tells us that the government wants to put an end to child poverty but it is the Liberals themselves who made them poor. This is a fact.
They say they want to help people get an education so that they are better trained but they penalize people who work in the construction industry. Nowadays people who go to a technical school or a community college are penalized. Before they were not penalized when they received unemployment insurance benefits to finish school or improve their training. Now there is a two week penalty. In the meantime they have no income. For someone who works 12 months a year, this makes no sense.
People working in the industry, for example, who wanted to become better in their trade and obtain more knowledge, were being sent to community college and did not have a two week waiting period for employment insurance. The first day they entered community college they are paid.
Today what do people get? People feel they are finished because they have no money to buy food or provide for their families. Employment insurance was not meant to hurt working people. The $32 billion does not belong to the Minister of Finance to balance his budget on the backs of people who lost their jobs. The billions of dollars in the fund was to help individuals who did not have jobs. The throne speech said that Canadians chose to have employment insurance, but the Liberals chose to take it away from them. That is not right and it is not fair. It is totally unacceptable.
Back home, in the Acadian peninsula, in the Bathurst area or in Gaspé, we have jobs in various sectors. Some people work in the forest industry, others in the fisheries, while others work in tourism. Back home there is no more work after August 15. All the visitors are gone. Work starts on June 15 and ends on August 15th.
All those who work in the tourism industry have a problem. As for the fisheries, the lobster season starts May 1 and ends June 30th; herring fishing starts August 28 and goes until around September 15 or 20. After, there is nothing, absolutely nothing. Does it mean we should close down the Atlantic fisheries, that we should lock it up? We will have to close it down and it will be all over. It is a pity.
Yesterday, a lady in Moncton called me from Albert county. She had called the new Liberal member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac. I do not know if there is a word to describe this member. I will not say his name in the House. She told him she had a problem with her employment insurance. He said that all the members are from Ontario and that we are too small a number to bring about changes to the employment insurance, we are on our own.
He should never have run if he feels he is too small and on his own. He should be in politics to speak up for the people of his area, this is what the campaign was all about. I invite the new members from our region who are very familiar with the issue of seasonal work to help their Liberal colleagues acquire a better understanding of this issue.
Whether in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, the situation is the same as in northern Ontario, Manitoba or British Columbia. A logger without a job is just that. One cannot change a logger into a cook. That is the problem. The same thing goes for plant workers. We need those workers.
Hopefully we will not fight when the bill goes to committee. Today, I tried to describe the real problem facing our regions. Families are being destroyed and people arev killing themselves because they do not have anything to eat. Heads of families call to say they have nothing to give their kids during the spring gap, from February to May. They have nothing left.
What is the solution: work, employment insurance, welfare? No. We need a better system. The only way we can have a better system is by sitting down and talking like civilized people and by listening to the problems of Canadians, of workers across the country. Workers are workers, whether they are in the Gaspé Peninsula, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, northern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, the Yukon or the Northwest Territories, and we must understand them.
It is not easy for those people who are struggling in an industry that is very dear to us. People in Ottawa love to eat fish and lobster but there is no lobster in Lake Ontario or in Lake Huron.
There is, however, in Chaleur Bay in the Atlantic Ocean and in the Pacific Ocean as well. An understanding of and an openness to our seasonal industries is required.
Once again, and I will keep on repeating this, it should be possible to speak to one another and find solutions. It is not a question of considering Bill C-2 again and passing it as quickly as possible. The people concerned are tired of being studied. Action is required now.
I urge the parliamentary committee to visit my riding to see what it is like for men and women who work in fishplants and for woodcutters. I invite them to pay us a visit and get the whole picture. Perhaps then they would understand the situation.
The leader of the Canadian Alliance drew up the plan in half an hour in Bathurst. He understood that changes to the employment insurance were needed. The only problem was that when he left he forgot that the Atlantic provinces belonged to Canada and said that we should cut them again. That is how fast he forgot.
I hope the Canadian Alliance is willing to work for the better of Canadian men and women and that it has an open mind, not just for big corporations, but for the little guy and the little woman who works day after day to try to make a living.
I am glad to have had this opportunity to speak about the problems in our region. I can, if necessary, provide further details. What we need are real solutions that make EI accessible to those who need it.