Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct some of what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour just said. It is not the workers who are seasonal, but the work. The workers are prepared to work throughout the year, but the work remains seasonal.
On October 2, I asked a second question in the House. I asked the minister about the fact that unemployment experts were not consulted about changes to the program.
This is even more of a problem now that winter has arrived and Christmas is approaching. Social inequality is growing in Canada. The minister cannot ignore this fact. Thousands of Canadians are having trouble paying their bills, heating their homes and feeding their children.
The economy remains fragile and the unemployment rate is not declining as quickly as the Conservatives had hoped. This means that hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers will find it difficult to make the money last until the end of December, and hundreds if not thousands of these people will be using food banks.
Seasonal work has been most affected. There are jobs in Canada, but the reality is that the jobs are not distributed evenly throughout the year or throughout the regions. We have to live with that, and the minister must take that into account in her reform.
Could the minister listen to everyone who has a stake in employment insurance and announce major adjustments to the reform?