Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from southern Vancouver Island. I am from the northern part.
The actual number of people unemployed is a somewhat difficult number to calculate. The IWA, the Industrial, Wood and Allied Workers union, as of this week estimates that there are 6,033 people unemployed as a consequence of the dispute, 8 sawmills closed and 20 on reduced operations. That is in British Columbia, northern Ontario and part of Quebec where they have certification and jurisdiction. Certainly that number on a national basis, expanded by people from other certifications or by people who are not certified union workers, would mean that we have a very large number of people out of work because of this softwood dispute.
The main difficulty I have with the government announcement on financial assistance is that it deals with none of the nuts and bolts of what was being asked for in common sense support in order to retain people in the industry and keep companies in the game in terms of being able to export. There are two things. One is an expansion of employment insurance. Already there are people whose employment insurance benefits have expired. They have been told that their only option is welfare and social assistance. This government program did not deal with that issue whatsoever. It needs to deal with that.
On the other issue, the main thing that could be done, particularly for small and medium sized companies, is a loan guarantee program so that the tariff liability until such time as it will be reimbursed can be covered with government guarantees. That is something we have been putting out there in conjunction with industry since last spring. That is what has been promised by the Minister of Natural Resources since June. The government still has not delivered on that very specific proposal.
Yes, there are many government actions that are hurting our small communities, the airport tax in particular.