Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-280 introduced by my colleague from Manicouagan, especially since he is from the riding next to mine and once represented part of the riding that I currently have the honour of representing. I am talking about the great traditional region of Charlevoix and the Haute-Côte-Nord regional municipality.
Introducing this bill to create an independent employment insurance fund makes sense considering the work the Bloc Québécois has been doing since 1993. Some work was even done between 1990 and 1993, before we formed the official opposition. Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that the Bloc Québécois has defended the interests of Quebeckers and also the interests of the regions in Quebec, which, like my region, are greatly affected by the problem of seasonal employment and work involving various interruptions.
What do we mean when we talk about seasonal employment? Among other things, we mean the entire fishing industry. Even if they wanted to take their boats out in mid-January, when the ice is four feet thick, workers could not work in those conditions.
Tourism is another seasonal industry. I must say that the people in the regions are doing an amazing job at trying to develop the concept of year-round tourism.
We could also talk about work in forestry. To meet the needs of our sawmills and pulp mills, small black or grey spruce that help regenerate the forest need to be planted and planted again. However, they cannot be planted when the snow is four feet deep.
When I went to the opening of a new peat bog in Sainte-Thérèse-de-Colombier, I had the opportunity to visit many others. I am sorry, but you cannot harvest peat when the snow is four feet deep.
The job market in these regions consists in large part of seasonal work and that is the reality. Through the years the EI system has generated surpluses estimated by the Auditor General at $46.8 billion in 2003. This Liberal government, by the way, no longer deserves our confidence to govern. That is why a number of our fellow citizens are asking us to get rid of this government. It is not only corrupt, but also insensitive to the needs of the unemployed.
Representatives of this government have come to meet the residents of the North Shore and Charlevoix only just before an election. They propose transitional measures and geographic programs that fail to consider the reality of unemployment in these regions. And so, they came to see us in 1997, again in 2000, yet again in June 2004, during the election campaigns to tell us that the government was going to address the issue of seasonal workers and have faith. However, once elected, the Liberals remain indifferent to the issue and absolutely refuse to address it.
I want to take this opportunity to mention the efforts of the Mouvement Action-Chômage, which started in Charlevoix. I salute this initiative created by a slip of a woman, named Dany Harvey, who is the movement's coordinator, along with other people who contribute enormously to it. This movement in Charlevoix has led to more; there are now 14 such movements throughout Quebec.
The North Shore has a group, too, whose president, Lyne Sirois of Portneuf-sur-Mer, is doing a fantastic job. These people are making do with limited means.
Even the Sans-Chemise movement in Abitibi was visited by Canada Revenue Agency inspectors, who said it was not complying with its mission regarding charitable receipts. They threatened to pull the organization's subsidies and benefits in this regard.
It is indecent. This government is insensitive. Unfortunately, this is the reason workers become exasperated, take to the streets, and even block the main roads. No one condones that, but exasperation and disgust sometimes make us realize that something just has to be done.
Last April, a year ago, we went to Forestville. It was literally shut down by the community, not only by the workers. Elected officials from all levels were present. Retailers closed up shop. A huge meeting was held at the Forestville church. The people marched, and their solidarity was apparent as they called on the government to wake up and do something because things could not stay the way they were.
This is why the bill must be passed. I challenge the Liberal members from Quebec and the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, who keeps saying she is aware of the situation of seasonal workers and the unemployed. Let her prove it, and let the Liberals vote with us.
I put the challenge as well to Conservative members, who would not stop saying during the debates in the latest election that we did not have a monopoly on defending the unemployed, that they too were concerned. We will see what the Conservative members do. I hope there will not be a repeat of what happened to the motion of my colleague from Trois-Rivières last week, which was defeated with the support of the Liberals and the Conservatives.
The Liberals and the Conservatives are two sides of the same coin. They make fine promises during the election campaign, but only the Bloc Québécois can defend the interests of Quebeckers. We have proven it.
The aim of this bill is to keep the government from dipping into the employment insurance fund surplus, because that is theft. The surpluses do not belong to it. The Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Finance, was a champion at dipping into the EI fund. He bragged about his government's eliminating the deficit, which had been $42 billion under the Conservatives. He has the gall to brag about the $12 billion surpluses annually. It is indecent.
He has robbed the provinces with the fiscal imbalance and dipped into the EI fund to finance his deficit. This means that the unemployed should be the ones boasting about reducing Canada's deficit.
This bill is designed to prevent the government from dipping into the surpluses. After all, this money does not belong to the government; it belongs to the workers as well as the employers and the entrepreneurs who pay premiums.
When we visit an industrial park, people there tell us they hope we are going to resolve the unemployment situation. We also tell business people that they too are being robbed, because part of what is in the EI fund came from them.
If the fund were managed by an independent committee and the surpluses remained in the fund, by the end of any given fiscal year, we could say that, next year, we are going to pull up our socks and take a serious look at the situation of seasonal workers. Another year, or later that year, we could look into the situation of young people, women and older workers. These are all groups which are penalized under the current employment insurance plan.
The fact of the matter is that this is not an employment insurance plan, but an unemployment insurance plan. Those who are covered by this plan are not sure of getting a job, but one thing is certain: they are unemployed. To add insult to injury, only 40% of those who contribute qualify for benefits.
So, on top of being robbed because of the system, when the time comes to claim benefits, we are told that the system will not pay.
What would we call an insurance company that refuses to pay after you lost all your belongings in a fire, saying it will only pay after a second fire? We would call it a blasted thief. That is how the government is behaving.
Let us pass this bill, pull up our socks and look into the situation of seasonal workers, young people, women and older workers. That is what we are calling for, and I challenge the two other parties to vote for this bill.