Mr. Speaker, I remind members that we are discussing a motion introduced by my Bloc Québécois colleague, the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, on this opposition day. I will share my time with the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou.
The forestry industry is the sole economic backbone of many regions in Quebec. In fact, the Quebec forestry industry accounts for 88,000 jobs in various sawmills and pulp and paper plants, or about a third of all Canadian jobs in this sector. The economies of some 230 cities, towns and villages in Quebec are heavily dependent on it, and 160 of them are totally dependent. Nearly half of all forestry communities in Canada are in Quebec.
We are in the middle of the worst economic crisis in history. As a result, more than 25,000 jobs have been lost since April 2005 in the Quebec forestry industry and related sectors.
The Bloc Québécois has introduced a number of measures that we have run by business owners and their employees—the primary stakeholders. The Bloc Québécois is presenting three measures with three main objectives, which are supported by those in the industry.
The first is to provide immediate support to the industry; the second is to help the workers and communities affected to get through the crisis; and the third is to modernize the forestry industry.
Very concrete measures have to be implemented with respect to these three components. In our opinion, access to credit is now the main problem for these industries. This is one of the reasons why, four years ago, we supported the softwood lumber settlement with the United States. As we know, this morning the NDP made much of this fact. We find it regrettable that the NDP wanted the crisis of four years ago to go on. It would like to have seen no assistance to the forestry industry four years ago, so as to settle its fate once and for all. However, the softwood lumber agreement gave this industry four more years of life.
What is unfortunate is that the Conservatives refused to implement the transitional measures that we proposed here, notably credits to help people through this crisis, and also to help companies engage in secondary or tertiary processing, or to take a big step in this green shift that we on our side of the House would particularly like to see. Clearly the green shift is of little concern to our friends opposite, but it is of great concern to us.
I am not going into great detail here, for I have little time left. We also wanted measures to support workers who lose their jobs. The first thing was to modernize the employment insurance program. We tabled concrete proposals and bills in this House to abolish the waiting period so that people could receive their EI benefits sooner, thus injecting immediate money into the local economy. We also asked for the employment insurance eligibility threshold to be lowered to 360 hours for everyone. There was much debate on this subject last summer. We asked for a benefit rate increase from 55% of income to 60%, an increase of insurable earnings to $42,500, and calculation of these benefits over the 12 best weeks. And this would be a good time to restore the program for older worker adjustment, commonly called the POWA.
If these measures were put in place, even without the POWA, the number of persons who could hope to receive employment insurance benefits would rise from 46% to 65%.
The measures that were introduced by the previous government excluded so many people that only a minority of them can now hope for employment insurance benefits, even if they contribute to the plan. In other words, we are talking about 148,000 more potential recipients of employment insurance. Imagine the beneficial effect that would have on the economy of each of our regions, each of our constituencies. On average, there would be $30 million more per year coming into our constituencies. That is money that belongs to workers and employers, except that the government has hijacked it and is depriving our regions of this economy, of this economic breath of air.
We would also like to see substantial support for seasonal industry. Something quite tragic is now happening in this House. The government has tabled Bill C-50, which concerns people who would be able to receive an extension of their employment insurance benefits, but only those who have not been unemployed in the previous 7, 8, 10 or 12 years, provided they contributed for 30% of their time and did not draw 35 weeks of employment insurance benefits. This means that all seasonal workers are excluded. The great majority of women and young people are excluded. Almost all the workers in the forestry industry are excluded.
This is a bill of exclusion. The Bloc finds it very unfortunate that the NDP supports this bill which is anti-worker and anti-unemployed.