Mr. Speaker, the first thing that comes to my mind is that the hon. member should have given consent for making this motion votable today. That would have been a first step, a concrete contribution toward making some progress on this file, which has been dragging for some years now because the current government refused to assume its responsibilities. This is the case for the seasonal workers, and for other workers as well.
When he says that the system is a disincentive to work, my answer is that we must dispel the myth that most people do not want to work. Seasonal workers want to have more weeks of work, because they will then be able to draw benefits for more weeks. The problem is that, as a result of the restrictions brought in between 1994 and 1996, which are still in effect today, the people in my region would, if it were not for transitional measures, be left facing a 20 to 25 week gap next winter. Imagine what would happen if we had no earnings for 15 to 20 weeks. How would we react?
In this case, it is not a matter of 15 to 20 weeks without earnings, but 15 to 20 weeks without EI benefits. The decision was made to tighten things up. When the economy in a region picks up, this penalizes seasonal workers because they are required to have more hours in order to qualify. So, in the end, there are fewer weeks of benefits.
Although we rejoice that there are more jobs, the end result for people working in the peat bogs, in agriculture, in forestry, picking berries or fruit, and many others doing similar work, is that there will not be any more weeks work from one year to the next just because the economy has picked up. That does not affect the size of the blueberry crop.
So a way must be found to acknowledge the existence of these seasonal industries. We must replace Mr. Chrétien's phrase about the jobless being beer-drinkers, which dates from 1993, with another phrase: “Seasonal industries are real industries, ones that contribute to the development of our regional economies”.
The way to do that is to implement a good employment insurance plan that will allow people to get through the year, work 15 weeks and then be eligible for 37 weeks of benefits, so that they can continue to work in our regions and not find themselves forced to leave. The young person who starts working in the tourism industry in a region, works for 800 hours and finds that his or her services are no longer required when he or she is missing 110 hours more will just move to the big city and never come back to the region. We trained that young person for nothing. That is the kind of situation we see.
The first thing the member should do, since he is the one who refused to make this motion votable, is to say that the motion should be votable so that we can exert some pressure on the government to force it to propose a thorough reform of the employment insurance plan to the House so it can be approved before the next election.