Madam Speaker, we have before us a motion presented by an hon. member of the NDP. We will support the motion even though it really does not go far enough. The purpose of the motion is give back to the unemployed a small part of what has, there is no denying it, been stolen from them over the past few years.
I am supporting this motion, but it is as if those watching us had had all their furniture stolen from their house in their absence—all their belongings, electronic equipment, the entire contents of their home—and someone said, “I know who did it and I will make sure he returns the cutlery.” I am not against the fact that your stolen cutlery will be returned. I just think it is a shame that the person who knows who the thief is has no other recourse than to ask “Could you please return the cutlery?” This seems quite wrong to me.
Despite good intentions, the NDP has put the House in an odd situation. The unemployed have had $47 billion stolen from them—these are the real figures, which everyone recognizes—by the government since 1994, since it cut benefits. The unemployed have been denied access to the plan with the comments “You are not entitled, because you have not accumulated enough hours. You are young, you need 900 hours and you have accumulated only 600, so you are not entitled. You cannot do this; you cannot do that. In one region, you can have this, in another, you cannot have that”.
The government has repaid part of Canada's debt on the backs of the poorest families and society's neediest people. That is unacceptable. Every single member in this House should be scandalized at the government's attack on the most disadvantaged, people who lose their jobs, saying “Here is a good group from whom I can get billions of dollars to pay off the debt”.
A normal government might be expected to go after the richest and the biggest businesses, which often succeed in evading taxes in various ways and to get those who earn a little more and enjoy a standard of living well above the average to contribute. However, that is not the case, because, since 1994, the Liberal government has preyed on the poor who lose their jobs. That is the fact of the matter.
Today, the big gift from the NDP is one of the 28 recommendations in the report from the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. In that committee, the members said, “That makes no sense. Here are 28 things that have to be carried out if justice is to be done to those who lose their job”. The NDP picked one and only one. What's more, it abridged it.
I have to say to them—and maybe hurt their feelings—that if we no longer recognize them, if we no longer recognize their principles, the unemployed—