Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to resume debate. This is a question that the hon. member asked her own colleague earlier. It is an explanation to which she should take the time to listen. It would be to her advantage.
Labour market agreements exist above and beyond labour market development agreements, which help workers who currently qualify for employment insurance benefits to gain more skills and obtain more training. Paid for through employment insurance premiums, labour market development agreements allow individuals who have recently lost their jobs through no fault of their own to access training in order to make it easier for them to transition to another career.
Canada is currently investing close to $2 billion a year in the provinces and territories by way of this system. Since 2008, Quebec has received $2.4 billion through labour market development agreements to help its workers. What does this mean for Quebec workers? In the 2009-10 fiscal year, 205,411 people took advantage of the services offered by these programs, which provided 62,015 interventions pertaining to employment-related benefits and 173,297 interventions pertaining to employment assistance services. Clearly, our government, under the leadership of our Prime Minister, has made a significant investment to help unemployed workers get the training they need to transition to new careers.
As a result, and in conclusion, we reject the premise of the opposition's motion, which seeks to cast aspersion on one of Quebec's long-standing natural resource industries. We also reject the opposition's argument that separate funding is key to helping our workers transition to another industry since our government has already provided for the assistance necessary to help workers who wish to transition to another career should they feel the need to do so.