Mr. Speaker, on October 18, I asked the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development a question regarding the march by workers and the unemployed, from Montreal to Ottawa, to ask the government for changes to employment insurance. We know that of those who pay into the plan, only 38% of men and 32% of women are eligible for employment insurance.
The government response is that 85% qualify. These are individuals who would normally qualify, but not individuals who really pay into the plan.
I will quote the minister:
As he knows, employment insurance is extremely broad, extremely complex. Any changes that are to be made, we have to make sure that they do not affect some other part of EI in an adverse way. That is why we are slowly going through and making sure we pay due attention to all the various aspects of EI so that it meets the needs of all Canadians.
That is the government's response. The Conservatives might say they are a new government, but while the Liberals were in power for 13 years, the Conservative Party—or the Reform Party or the Canadian Alliance Party—was in opposition for 13 years and it knows full well the harm this causes to seasonal workers.
The minister's response, as I was saying, is “cut and paste” in computer terms. It is the same thing. The minister's response is the same response the Liberals kept giving since 1996. It is exactly the same response that officials have written for the minister for the past 13 years, or since 1996. The minister comes back and says this needs to be studied. In the meantime, people are suffering, people are not qualifying for employment insurance.
What is more, there was a second question to do with older workers. This was the minister's response:
I would like to quote the president of the CPQ who said yesterday about our new program: Between being given a fish and learning to fish, the choice is clear. We have to help the affected workers retrain in different areas, and the sooner the better.
I think the minister does not understand what it takes to catch a fish. Back home they knew how to catch fish and now there are no fish left in the sea. They learned to catch fish, but now there are no fish left, which is why there are problems in the regions where there is seasonal work, in Atlantic Canada and in Quebec.
The issue of older workers applies as much to people working in the fishery as to people working in the textile industry. The government says it has no intention of abandoning older workers and that it plans to help them. The Conservative government has abandoned the workers. A new government had the opportunity to make changes to employment insurance.
Earlier, when people from Quebec marched from Montreal to Ottawa, they were only told that the government would slowly look into it. For the 13 years the Liberals were in power they had time to look into it. They were in parliamentary committee and they made recommendations to change employment insurance.
I would like to hear what theParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development has to say about these questions and to the people from Quebec who marched from Montreal all the way here to Ottawa.