Mr. Speaker, I salute my colleague from the Kitchener—Waterloo area, formerly Berlin, in south central Ontario.
With regard to my riding, and in reference to her example, I will speak of the Canada Summer Jobs program. The federal government has decided to go with a new way of doing things. The former program worked well. It seems that, when things are working well, our Conservative colleagues have a knack for dismantling them.
Our multi-ethnic organizations are probably smaller than those in my colleague's riding. Nevertheless, we do have an Arab community and a Portuguese community. I am thinking of self-help and anti-poverty organizations, which provided young people with summer jobs in youth job cooperatives or summer camps that were axed because of a set of criteria developed by the government that did not make sense.
Fortunately, the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party, the Liberal Party of Canada and community groups—those affected first and the fabric of our society—challenged the government. I have to acknowledge the Conservatives for recognizing that they made mistakes. However, that is as far as I will go because they have not recognized all their mistakes. They should have kept what was working well.
I will therefore say to my hon. colleague that my riding has experienced certain difficulties in that regard. An element of unfairness is introduced when using a points-based assessment, and when riding officials no longer have a say and everything is sent to Montreal—which is a lovely city but where the people are not familiar with the social fabric and events in the Gatineau riding—rather than relying on the work of government employees who are very familiar with the riding. I empathize with the multicultural communities, which unfortunately—and I did use the term unfortunately—have had to pay the price for this lack of judgment. But there is always hope. One never knows. Perhaps our colleagues will come to their senses in this matter?