Mr. Speaker, I had asked the human resources minister a question here in the House. In 2009, crab quotas were 20,000 tons or more, which gave my region a crab fishing season that lasted eight weeks. In fishing, there are all kinds of species, including crab, lobster, herring and so on. That many weeks allows plant workers to accumulate enough hours to be eligible for employment insurance. However, in 2010, on the advice of biologists, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans decided to reduce quotas to about 7,800 metric tonnes. That reduced the number of work weeks from eight to four. Since the workers had accumulated enough hours the previous year, it was not the end of the world. But this year, the biomass has increased by about 17%.
The then Minister of Fisheries and Oceans—who is now a minister—had increased the quotas to 8,700 metric tonnes, which provided just four weeks of work for the plant workers, the majority of whom are women. At the time, I had asked the minister whether she would be prepared to work with the province of New Brunswick on implementing a program to help those people. This could be through community programs or something else to help the people in these communities to be eligible for employment insurance, unless the government wants them to go on welfare.
The programs that would send people from northeastern New Brunswick and the Acadian Peninsula to work in Cap-Pelé or in Bouctouche are not the answer. The government needs to realize that many of these people are single mothers. They are not interested in leaving two children behind to go work in Cap-Pelé. We need projects in the region, back home, to help people get through the crisis in the fishery. The crisis in the crab fishery comes in cycles; the quotas go up and down. Currently, the biomass is on the rise. Let us hope this will be settled in a few years.
The minister told them to turn to the province, which was receiving money from the federal government and it was up to the province to solve its problems. It is the same amount of money the province received in the two or three previous years. There is a shortfall for the province. I am again asking the minister to help the province of New Brunswick implement programs to help the plant workers, because we do not want them to go on welfare. We want them to be proud and to have work. I am asking the minister to intervene immediately.