Mr. Speaker, it is really pitiful to hear such a speech. It contains a lot of falsehoods. First, we are told that 400,000 more people will be included in the plan. They will be allowed to contribute. Before, they were not. Now, they are allowed to contribute, but if they are women or young people, they will need 910 hours to be eligible. Many of them will never be eligible.
If they are seasonal workers, they will need more hours than before. The government even went as far as curtailing the number of weeks they are entitled to benefits. Next winter, if the transitional measures are not extended, we will be faced with a gap not of 10 to 12 weeks, but of 20 to 25 weeks. Do you know why they do that? To collect surpluses in the EI fund and use them to pay down the debt with the money taken from those in society who earn the least. That is totally revolting.
The parliamentary secretary was at the committee meeting on Tuesday morning. The member for Madawaska—Restigouche, a Liberal, was compelled to denounce her attitude. She was totally closed-minded to the needs of the unemployed and the reality they face. Could she explain why, three years after the unanimous report, the EI plan still discriminates against young people and women who re-enter the labour market, and why no follow-up has been given to the recommendation that self-employed workers should be admissible to the EI plan? How can it be explained?
How can one explain why, regarding parental leave, it took a court decision for the federal government to accept to sit down again at the negotiation table with Quebec? The court said that it was not a federal matter.
How can the government explain why, three years after the report was tabled, it still refuses to make the recommended changes to the EI plan? Is it because there is no money left in the fund because all the surpluses were used to pay down the national debt?