Mr. Speaker, I remember the despair on the faces of hotel workers who were laid off when the hotel industry suffered greatly during the SARS crisis in Toronto. Many of the workers had to sell their houses because they had no money to pay their mortgages. They said to me, “We have paid into this insurance. Why are we not qualified to get some of it back? It is our money”. They were desperate. They lost their homes. Some of them were in great despair. That is what happened to ordinary workers when they faced unemployment.
In the House of Commons on June 2nd, 2008. See this statement in context.