Mr. Speaker, I am rising tonight because of a reply I received from the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. My question was about the extension of employment insurance by five additional weeks. We knew that the Conservative government was delaying renewing this pilot project. The Minister came back with answers, and since then, as we know, the pilot project has been renewed, but certainly not to the complete satisfaction of workers, for two specific reasons. I will come back to this in a moment.
The reason why we have to work to ensure fairness in the employment insurance system is that in many cases, workers are going through hard times, and not just in the last few months. When seasonal workers lose their jobs, they have to be able to pay for groceries and electricity and make the payment on the house, and so on. These are the basics, and they have to be paid even if a worker loses his or her job. Who are the groups who have the most to lose in this situation? Workers certainly lose a great deal, but family members also stand to lose a lot in these situations.
It is all the more deplorable that since the Conservative government came to power, every time we talk about the pilot projects, it is always about whether it will be renewing them or not. This pilot project, which provided a five-week extension to fill what we call the spring gap, was renewed, but when I asked my question, it had only seven days left to go before it ended.
This is not the first time. Since the Conservatives first came to power in January 2006, we have had to fight and push the government repeatedly to ensure that it restores these pilot projects that are so important for our workers, and as I said a moment ago, are even more crucial for their families. Without these measures, the families would not be able to support themselves.
We must always ask why workers and families have to get down on their knees to the Conservative government to have these pilot projects renewed. At the very least, if it had said, in response to the repeated representations we made, that it was going to restore all these excellent pilot projects that the Liberal government initiated and make them permanent, that would at least have been something accomplished. We would not have to keep coming back to the House of Commons every 12 or 18 months and pressuring the government, to ensure that our workers and their families can get the assistance they need.
These are examples. When I asked my question, there were only seven days left in the pilot project, and the holiday season was about to start. Why is the government always trying to show workers and their families that it is the boss, that it has the key of the coffers and that it will give them money when it pleases? These people need help. They do not need to be told to kneel down in front of the federal government. They need help from the government.
We should ask ourselves a question — and I will ask the question directly, then continue. To start with, why is the Conservative government always waiting until the last minute to renew pilot projects related to employment insurance? Second, why is the Conservative government not making these pilot projects permanent? Is it because it would like to completely eliminate them one day? Is it leaving the door open so that, when comes renewal time, it would be easy to just delete them?