Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if this interpretation is correct, but I never said I disputed the figures, that is, 190,000 unemployed workers at a cost of $938 million. I said there were some questions about where those figures came from. Whoever provides figures like that must be able to justify them.
I was told that the figures were not explained at the briefing session. How were these numbers reached, when the calculation appears so complicated that not one minister can explain it? Before we support a bill that claims to benefit 190,000 unemployed workers, it would have been nice—in fact crucial—to have these very important, specific answers. The Bloc Québécois is not known for being satisfied with easy explanations.
The government could have introduced quick measures to really help the unemployed, but it did not do so. The legislative process was not needed to bring in such a measure. A simple pilot project could have been introduced, as the Conservative government has done in the past. As the member said, that could have helped those unemployed workers immediately. But that was not what they did. I think we are seeing political games being played on the backs of unemployed workers.