Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas for his very good question. The government has already taken $54 million from the employment insurance fund. In addition, from 2006 to 2007, the federal government announced a $3.3 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund, and from March to today, its surplus has been $1.7 billion. The reason why the government does not want to give this bill the royal recommendation is that it thinks all is well in Canada. It thinks unemployment is going down and, since there are no more problems, it can go on drawing from the employment insurance fund, just like the Liberals used to do.
We had agreed to say that Bill C-269 is similar to Bill C-265. Even the Liberals agreed, but now they have started to slip on the ice. Is it because winter has arrived that their skates have started slip? They do not want to support us on this bill now because they are afraid that, if they return to power some day, they will not be able to continue the cuts they began in 1996.
We need to remember that the employment insurance problem is the Liberals’ baby, even though the difficulty was created by the Conservatives before them under Brian Mulroney. The cuts started in the Brian Mulroney era and were continued by Jean Chrétien’s government and so, on and on.
This bill would help people who live in rural areas or have jobs in seasonal industries to qualify for employment insurance. The Bloc has often talked as well about the bill or motion to come to the aid of working people 55 years and older who lose their jobs. However, the government is still in neutral on this. It does not want to talk about it and has no intention of helping these people. But the government is there all right when it is time to help big business and the big banks by giving them big tax breaks. It is just too bad for working people, according to the government. They should just move to Alberta. But not everybody can move to Alberta.