Mr. Speaker, first, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Trois-Rivières for having introduced this bill in the House of Commons. I am flattered because there are a number of similarities with the bill I introduced before the election. In computer lingo, this virtually called cut and paste. It could be said that the NDP and the Bloc Québécois have much in common when it comes to the needs of workers in regions providing seasonal employment.
Some Liberals also agree with us that changes are needed. There have been past examples of this. I remember our colleague in the House of Commons, Georges Farrah, from Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok. I think he lost the election just over employment insurance.
This shows the hardships that people can experience in certain regions. We just need to consider the hon. member for Beauséjour, who is in favour of the EI reform. His experience representing people in the region of Cap-Pelé and Bouctouche, people working in the fish plants, has made him understand the importance of EI to seasonal workers.
Not so long ago, I met with the people of Cap-Pelé. The mayor asked if anyone was coming to recruit people working in fish plants to take them to Moncton. He said that he was happy for Moncton. He congratulated the city of Moncton on its unemployment rate, which is 5% or 5.6%. But if everyone from his region goes to work in Moncton, it means that the Cap-Pelé region might as well shut down. As the mayor of Cap-Pelé, he is not happy with the way things are going.
I was surprised to see my colleague from Peterborough shift and say that he cannot support such a bill. He was a member of the committee created after Bill C-2. The recommendations were along the lines of this bill. He has changed since he sat on that committee but, back then, he strongly supported the bill.
I remember too that the people of the Cape Breton region strongly supported it. When there is an election, people want to be part of the government so they can ensure that changes are made to EI because it needs changing. People are starting to realize that there have been a number of elections in which they say they want to sit on the government benches in order to change EI but it does not change.
This week I thought it shameful that the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development had the gall—excuse me for saying so—to lower the employment insurance premiums. I thought this was a bit rude of him, especially since the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development is currently considering changes to employment insurance.
Instead, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development is listening to the Conservatives. That is why I say there is no difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals. The only thing the Conservatives ever ask for is lower employment insurance contributions, because they think the employers are being over taxed.
I do not know how many times I have said, here in the House of Commons, that no employer has ever called me to say that he was going to lose his business because he could not afford to pay the employment insurance premiums and that he needed them lowered. I hope my phone starts ringing tomorrow morning. I have not received those types of calls.
However, I have seen people demonstrating in the street to say that the employment insurance system does not cover seasonal employment adequately. That is what I have heard.
When I went to the Forestville area before the election, I was talking to people in the streets, including Forestville's young priest and the former priest, who is now retired. I remember what the priest told me. He said it was not a political story, but a human story. The cuts made to employment insurance by the Liberals in 1996 had a direct impact on families and children. That is where they are hitting.
There are 1.4 million children going hungry in Canada and it is the Liberals' fault.
During the election campaign, I remember hearing varying opinions from the Conservatives. In 2000, the Conservative leader said, in the West, “We must not change employment insurance. We must make some cuts in it”. In the east, he said, “We are going to change employment insurance for you.” He did not know that the Globe and Mail is sold all over Canada and that people read both messages.
The shameful thing is that the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development listened to him and is reducing EI benefits to such a point that there will not be any money left in the EI fund to pay for what people need.
It may be a little comical, but as I have often said, you do not catch lobsters on St. Catherine Street in Montreal. The lobsters are in our waters, in Chaleur Bay and off Cape Breton. The lobsters are in the Bay of Fundy. People in Peterborough love our lobsters.
These people have seasonal jobs in regions like ours, in the Gaspé and Chaleur Bay, where everything freezes up in the winter. In fact, you cannot catch lobster in the winter. And besides that, we have to work within the quotas set for us by the government.
The people of Cap Pelé—and not just them, because this happens all over Canada—have found it necessary to cheat the system to accumulate hours, to do what some call “banking” their hours. They are breaking the law. In Cap Pelé, where the member of Parliament is a Liberal, 1,500 people were caught banking hours. The government told them, “We will not do anything to you. We will make the employer pay $5 million.”
At the same time, in my riding, 11 people were also banking hours. They had to repay the government $10,000 and $11,000. It is shameful that in a national program the government treats people represented by a Liberal member on way and the people represented by a member from another political party another—in a democracy like ours.
This is the biggest theft the government has committed in Canada: it has stolen $46 billion from the pockets of the workers and employers who have paid premiums into the employment insurance fund, and they took it to balance the budget and get to that zero deficit. It was all done on the backs of the workers who have lost their jobs and the children who have nothing to eat. It is shameful. That is what the Liberal federal government has done. Today it boasts that it has lowered premiums every year, and it does that to please the Conservatives.
I would like the people back home to know that the Conservatives are opposed to changing employment insurance. They think that slashing EI will send people back to work. I regret to say that my dear friends do not know their Canada. They do not know that some Canadians are in seasonal jobs and need employment insurance to get by. Punishing them and their families is not the way to help them get by.
I congratulate the member for Trois-Rivières on making recommendations, which I support 150%. I am not likely to ever need EI, but I see the hardships the Liberals have caused in my area.
When Doug Young lost his job here in Parliament, it was because he thrust the people of my area into abject poverty. I have women calling my riding office and talking of taking their own lives, because there is nothing left in the house. I have fathers calling and talking of suicide, because they are not able to support their families. The Liberal government is responsible for their desperate situation, with the help of the Conservatives.
know that I have said all this before. That is because the problem is still the same. There are Liberals who agree with me on this. I hope that this time they will be capable, in a minority government position, to do something about it. The same goes for the member for Beauséjour who has finally said—and it made the papers—that he hoped that, with a minority government, Parliament would be able to bring about the changes required to restore to workers what they are entitled to, and what has been taken from them.
The communities would be delighted to hear that. Workers are not the only ones hit by this. The Liberals are punishing the communities too. We are not all in Toronto, where there are jobs for the taking. In our area the situation is different, our workers are lured away to take employment elsewhere. Our regions are emptied. It is a kind of legal deportation. That is what is happening. The government is sticking it to the people in need.
Is this our Canada? Sometimes, we have to ask ourselves that question. We are not all as lucky as Alberta. If we had oil wells at home and if we no longer needed to fish, things would be different. I can assure the House that people back home are hard workers. When they move to Alberta, they are the first ones to get jobs, because they are hard workers. Contrary to what Doug Young once said in Hamilton, they are not lazy. That was written in the Globe and Mail .
In conclusion, I hope that hon. members will support this bill, that Liberals who are still not convinced will soon be and will do the right thing. It is not up to the Liberals to take that money and use it to reduce the debt and achieve a zero deficit. That money is there to help the needy, the families, the 800,000 people who do not qualify for employment insurance benefits.
I am pleased to have had the opportunity to tell hon. members what I think and what seasonal workers in our region think.