Mr. Speaker, we have heard many things said today. The Conservatives have said, among other things, that our perception constitutes an urban myth.
I am sorry, but when a minister states that the unemployed are the “bad guys”, that is not an urban myth. It is a reality. When a minister from the Maritime provinces says that the unemployed are people who take advantage of their period of unemployment to go hunting and fishing, it is not an urban myth: it is an insult.
When another minister tells us to our faces that people are essentially frauds, and we have to hire inspectors and ask them to cut $40,000 a month in employment insurance benefits, I am sorry, but we are no longer dealing with urban myths. We are dealing with the truth. It is not us who are dividing workers. It is they who are deciding that the unemployed are no longer workers, but frauds. It is they who are deciding that the Maritime provinces are populated only by people who do not want to work. The reality is that we have gone from 1 million unemployed to 1.4 million unemployed. That is a reality of their economics.
I would like the member to tell us the truth clearly, and why people are not working. It is quite simply because there are no jobs.