Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend's question. It is important to make a distinction between a safety net, which is designed to help people through short periods of time where they become unemployed through no fault of their own, and what really becomes a long term social program that really, in many cases, undermines the goals that the government is setting out to achieve, which ostensibly is to put people back to work and to give them some future and some hope.
What has happened in British Columbia is a good example of where the government has failed. Here we have a situation where the government has blown the trade file and the negotiations with the United States on softwood lumber. As a result, we have thousands of people who are unemployed, people whose livelihoods are in jeopardy and who are on the brink of losing their homes. The trade minister has promised for months that he would be providing some kind of help. That help has not been forthcoming.
On the other hand, we have these programs that simply are not effective and do not work, programs like the seasonal benefits, which I would argue have done more harm than good. Those sorts of benefits would be better addressed helping people through a short term crisis. If there is a crisis in the fishery, give them the benefits in the short run but do not leave them there forever. The same thing applies to softwood lumber. The same thing applies to other sectors of the economy.
Unfortunately, the government seems to have its priorities mixed up.