Mr. Speaker, I would like to stand here today and support Bill C-278. It is an important bill and I would like to commend the member for Trois-Rivières for bringing this forward to the House of Commons.
This is an important issue not only for persons who have to collect employment insurance in times of need but also for those they support in their families, whether it be their sons, their daughters or other members of the family. They require a direct income in their households to provide food on the table, to ensure their kids go to school and that they will get the transitional support necessary to get back on their feet again because something has happened in the workplace that has dislodged them from an opportunity or from an employment situation that they had.
It is important to recognize at the outset that what we are talking about here are modest improvements to return the system back to what it was intended to do. It was intended to support workers and their families, and to ensure that we had a national strategy for people who are out of a job to get back on their feet and be productive again.
That is what it was about and those workers paid for that. They paid on a daily basis into a system for insurance, so that they could have the decency and integrity of chasing the Canadian dream to ensure that their families would be well taken care of and progress. They paid for that. It is not something that was handed to them on a plate. It is not a handout. It is something that people and workers paid into, and employers as well, because we all recognize the need to have the supports necessary when people lose their jobs, especially in this day and age when we have more transitional employment than ever before.
We have workers who are paying for upgrades at schools, putting out thousands of dollars in education because a lot of workplaces do not do it anymore. They have to pay that debt back at the same time that there are fewer opportunities to find employment that will be sustainable, consistent and support them in a decent lifestyle.
The government has stolen from them. It is as simple as that. People pay every single day that they work into a fund that should be there for them in a time of need. It is important to recognize the situation that happens when workers lose their employment and they end up having--