Mr. Speaker, first, I want to tell the minister that the Liberal members who sat on the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities agreed with the recommendation.
I realize that independent programs can be created. However, in order for this to happen, a signal must be sent to the effect that there will be a program, but the Liberal government never sent such a signal.
One prefers to listen to those who think like him. Of course, even if a committee is unanimous, it has heard witnesses nevertheless. Some had reservations, as usual. However, there was still unanimity in the end, as evidenced by the unanimous report produced by all the political parties.
The problem when a government does not want to move forward is that it always looks for the person who has reservations. It takes the opinion of that person and says what the minister just told us, which is “Look, some were not pleased. An independent program would have been in order”.
We were prepared to support such a program. So was the industry. However, there was just one problem: the government should have sent a signal and said “We will set up a program. We will sit down with the stakeholders and we will find how we want this to work”. But of course the decision was never made, despite the unanimous report and despite the Liberal members who sat on the committee.
Again, the Bloc Quebecois members who sat on the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities were the best in this area. I hope that the Liberal Party did the same and selected the women and men who were the best choices to work in this area.
I trust the report produced by my colleagues who sat on the committee. The recommendation was to establish a program for self-employed workers. If I had been the government, I would have created this program and I would then have sat at the table with all the stakeholders.
However, when one does not want to do something, one always find an excuse not to act. Meanwhile, the government is piling up billions of dollars which probably makes the minister and president of Treasury Board happy, since he knows what to do with those billions: the main thing is to keep the money out of reach of workers.