Madam Speaker, it is now May 2009. The crisis did not start yesterday or the day before. In my riding, the crisis started over a year ago when pulp and paper mills and sawmills started closing. That is the reality that people in other parts of the country have had to deal with. We told the Conservative government about it, but it was not interested. It probably figured that it could put its head in the sand for a while, then come up for air once everything was rosy and the economy was doing just fine.
The fact is that, in September and October of last year, while the government was campaigning across the country, everyone was saying that the crisis was happening, was serious. But the Prime Minister kept saying that there was no crisis, that the worst was over and that we would get through it. The truth is that the warnings came from politicians, citizens and economists. But the Conservatives would not listen.
Who is responsible for the delays? Why did they not take action—back when the time was right and when people told them there was a crisis—to prevent families from suffering every day?