Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question about the employment insurance program.
As I mentioned in my presentation, the Conservatives, and the Liberals before them, made drastic changes to the employment insurance program. Among other things, in 1995, the Liberals took the surpluses out of employment insurance rather than investing in the program and helping people. Moreover, they reduced the benefits. The Conservatives did the same thing. They made cuts to the EI program and made changes to a program that helped everyone.
Just think about remote areas and seasonal workers. I lived long enough in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean to know about the difficulties faced by families and workers who should receive employment insurance because the plant where they were employed no longer had enough work for them. These people were hit hard by the reforms to employment insurance.
Right now, the Conservatives are denying the figures and are refusing to acknowledge that the unemployment rate is quite a bit higher than we think. There are some people who do not even apply for employment insurance and who look for help from other quarters because they know they will not be able to receive benefits from the EI program.