Mr. Speaker, for some time now, the employment insurance principle has been that when unemployment goes up in a given region, benefits are increased to help the sectors in difficulty. In our economic action plan, we added five weeks of benefits for all regions of Canada. This is a very important improvement for all Canadian workers. The NDP and the Bloc Québécois should have voted for those benefits, and not against the workers of Canada.
In the House of Commons on May 4th, 2009. See this statement in context.