Mr. Speaker, because of the member's experience in dealing with issues of displaced workers and EI, I have a question for him.
When we are talking about older workers in my region, whether they be miners, forestry workers, people working the land or people living in isolated communities, when they lose their jobs it is not only them who are displaced, it is the entire community. To add to that, many of these people have already suffered physical damage through the type of work they have done and are unable to be retrained. They are facing medical costs. If they are 48 or 49 years old and have worked 20 some years in the mines, their backs are gone.
When these people lose their jobs their entire community is affected. We are talking here about single industry communities. We have to add to the fact that while they have lost their income, they have also lost equity in their homes. Who will buy a home in a community where the mill has shut down?
We also see this in the loss of services. We cannot get doctors and nurses into communities where the income sources are dying. The young people will not return.
I also would like the member to comment on what is happening in northern Ontario now where the provincial Liberal government is committed to allowing the giant forestry companies to move the wood to wherever they please. They are creating super mills. The provincial government is allowing the large forestry companies that control the entire wood supply in Quebec and Ontario to move the wood where they want. They are then separating our resources from our communities.
Communities in my region, such as Opasatika, Val Rita, Kapuskasing, Hearst, Iroquois Falls and Smooth Rock Falls, are dependent on these resources. We are now being told by the provincial Liberals, which I believe is also part of a larger strategy at the federal level, that resources do not belong to communities nor to people any more, that they belong to the corporations.
With his experience, could the member tell us how we address the issue of workers who have lost their jobs in single industry communities when there are no alternatives and they are aging?