Mr. Speaker, I see that the minister has a selective memory. I asked him the question about air transport, knowing about Air Canada's terrible results. All of the committee's recommendations on air transport were rejected by the government. And now we see what shape the airline industry is.
On employment insurance, the minister has given us the answer. Obviously, the government is doing something else with the surplus in the EI fund and that is what the Bloc Quebecois deplores. Men and women are at home. Families live through 8 to 12 week gaps every year, when there is not enough income for a worker in the fishery, in farming, tourism, resorts or forestry. These are proud people who want to remain in their own region.
Canada is not only urban Canada or urban Quebec; it is rural Quebec, regional Canada, regional Quebec. That is the problem the minister should be solving with the money of the workers. He tells us candidly that he takes this money and puts it into other programs.
The problem is that, when workers pay their contributions, on their pay cheques, it says, “employment insurance contributions”. This money was never paid over to the government for any other purpose. Today, as we speak, during the spring gaps, there are men and women who have a hard time making ends meet and get poorer by the day. Some self employed workers are not eligible for benefits. These are the families the Bloc Quebecois has in mind, unlike the Liberal Party, which thinks only of taking this money and investing it elsewhere, although we know full well that it would be better to invest it in the EI plan, in the interests of the men, women and children who need it.