Madam Speaker, it is interesting. This is a difficult debate on this particular piece of legislation.
The choice before us is to assist a certain group of workers and not proceed with the kinds of changes that many of us in this place believe are necessary to the employment insurance program.
I can understand that members from a region where seasonal work is very important would be very concerned that seasonal workers are not helped by this particular piece of legislation.
I do not think the Conservative government is behaving appropriately in addressing the needs of seasonal workers. Those workers need help during this economic downturn, like other workers, like older workers, workers who have had a long attachment to the workforce. That is a very important group that needs the attention of this place and of the government.
Younger workers are also losing their jobs at this time. It is not easy for them either. I can understand when members of Parliament who feel that is a very important group believe that this legislation does not go far enough and does not address the concerns of younger workers at all, people who have not had the opportunity to build up that attachment to the labour force that allows them to take advantage of these proposals. The government should be addressing the needs of younger workers.
Women are also having a difficult time during this economic recession. We know that women need particular attention in our EI system, and they are not getting it from the government.
What about the people in high unemployment regions? Many forestry workers in British Columbia are not going to qualify for this because they lost their jobs long before this proposal was put on the table.
This is not the best proposal in the world. We need to pay attention to other groups of workers. There is lots of room to criticize the government's approach on employment insurance, but at the same time, in this corner of the House, we have looked at this bill and said that we cannot turn our backs on those workers who are offered this assistance at this moment in time.
Judging the piece of legislation that we have before us and the willingness of the government to move in that direction, we have decided to support that to make sure that those workers, up to 190,000 older workers with long attachment to the workforce, get some assistance. We are going to keep pushing for those other workers, seasonal workers, workers in high unemployment areas, workers where industries collapsed before the recession, women and young workers to see that they get the kind of assistance they need.
The EI program that we have is a shadow of what we need. The EI program we have should have been supported by that $54 billion to $57 billion, money that was collected from workers and employers in this country. In this corner, we are going to keep pushing to see that those improvements come along for those people as well.