Madam Speaker, we can clearly see the Conservative Party's bad faith with regard to Bill C-50, which is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Upon further study of this bill, we see that because of the eligibility criteria involved it will not help all workers in the construction industry, for instance, seasonal workers or people working in tourism who receive employment insurance benefits intermittently.
This bill introduces another set of criteria that make it more difficult to access employment insurance benefits. It creates another category of workers who will not qualify as EI claimants. Consider young people and seasonal workers in the construction industry or the forestry sector, for example.
The Conservatives need to wake up. Maybe they want to help them, but they are not going about it the right way. The forestry industry has been facing a crisis for five years and nothing has been done. The Conservatives have shown us again that they do not want to help the forestry sector. They set up phoney committees that might produce a little tidbit in two or three months, but right now, many people are asking for help and may well fall into poverty because they do not have access to employment insurance.
The Bloc Québécois cannot support this bill because it ignores everyone's needs, especially the needs of Quebeckers. The government helped the auto industry by investing $10 billion and now they have introduced Bill C-50. If they really wanted, in good faith, to help unemployed workers, they would not have introduced this bill, which will take some time to be adopted, and they would have accelerated the process by accepting the Bloc's proposal. If they had accepted it, we would already be doing the clause by clause examination of the bill in committee. We would have heard from many groups from Quebec and perhaps elsewhere, who would have come to tell us that this bill does not correspond to their situation. Once again we can see the Conservatives' bad faith when it comes to improving the employment insurance system.
In 1993 I sat on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, and people will remember how the Liberals gutted eligibility for employment insurance. This time, the Conservatives could put things right, because there is a surplus in the EI fund. It is workers and employers who pay for this insurance against job loss, not the government. The government's action is very restrictive. Instead of introducing a bill, the Conservatives could have put in place a pilot project, which would already be up and running.
Plants close and people are laid off temporarily. There have been quite a few temporary layoffs in Quebec in the past five years. I said that another category of people would be excluded from EI benefits. They are workers who do not qualify because they received more than seven weeks of EI a year in recent years, when the average in Quebec is 10 weeks. This bill allows that sort of exclusion. It excludes a portion of the population.
We know that this bill will help sectors where employability has been much more stable over the years and where workers have not taken advantage of employment insurance. This measure is designed to help people who lose their jobs regularly. There are fairly specific employment situations. Young people do not have seven years' experience, which is what is required. The bill applies to long-tenured workers. That is another irritant. The bill does not take into account women who work part-time and receive EI intermittently because they do not have long-term jobs.
It is clear that the Conservative government does not want to help workers who lose their jobs. It does not respect them, and it is not in tune with what they need.
That is clear in this bill. When we look at how we ended up with this bill, it was in very bad faith. From the time it was introduced, the Bloc Québécois asked that the bill be referred to committee before second reading in order to let the government know that some changes were necessary. We were prepared to look at this bill and make some changes to open it up a bit.
In the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, a report was presented which recommended improving accessibility and reviewing the number of hours. The Conservatives wanted nothing to do with it. To be entitled to up to 20 additional weeks, an individual has to run out of regular benefits. Only 25% of people run out of regular benefits and that is why the number is misleading. Again, it is smoke and mirrors. We are told this represents 190,000 workers, but that is not possible because 85% of those workers would have to run out of benefits and that is not the case.
I would like the Conservatives to look at what is happening in Quebec. We have some very serious problems in the forestry and the forestry industry. Some tens of millions of dollars in assistance have been paid out, but keeping jobs in the forestry industry is an even bigger challenge than it is in the automobile industry. The automobile industry received help and I am not criticizing that. I am criticizing the fact that not all industries in Quebec and Canada are being given enough assistance. I do not understand why the NDP, who made employment insurance their pet issue, is now burying its head in the sand to maybe save its own skin. It is agreeing with the government in order to keep it afloat. If it is not the NDP, then it is the Liberals, who voted in favour of the last budget and abandoned workers.
The Bloc Québécois introduced several economic proposals precisely to help the workers, as many as possible, to get through this crisis. EI reform was among the Bloc Québécois' goals. Not only did the Bloc want to better assist industries and all workers with specific measures to get through this crisis, but so did the OECD. We might see unemployment rates approaching 10%. That represents many unemployed people. This will make the number of EI claimants skyrocket. We will recall that, during the campaign, as far as the government was concerned, there was no economic crisis, there was no problem, and all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
Now we can see the government running up a huge deficit. Who will pay for that? Members will recall who footed the deficit under the Liberals, a deficit that the Conservatives may have also created. It was the people who lost their jobs. The restrictions on EI hit those who lost their jobs very hard.
Personally, I would like any member of that government who puts a question to me to try and explain how they came up with a figure of 190,000 workers. There are even political analysts who say that this bill was designed for Ontario, where employment tends to be long term, and not for businesses that have had to lay people off over the years, particularly in the forestry industry.
The government is crowing over this bill today. It should really make it better. Then, the Bloc Québécois will be able to tell the unemployed that it kept its word and tell the forestry industry that it stood up for them in this House. That is why I am actively advocating for this issue today.