Mr. Speaker, I listened to the words of the member for Ajax—Pickering and they sounded awfully familiar to ones I heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development last week. Did they all come off the same word processor?
In any event, the he said that people were better off working than not working. That is absolutely true. I have no disagreement with that.
However, the fact is that the changes the government has made to employment insurance are penalizing people in areas where there is not full-time or three-quarter time work available. They are penalizing them for taking a day's work because they are drawing back half their wages from what used to be the case. Farmers are having trouble getting people to work for a day because if they work for a day, then they are getting half their money clawed back.
I see the parliamentary secretary walking across to whisper in the member's ear. Does she want to answer the question for him, or is the member for Ajax—Pickering going to answer the question himself?
This system is penalizing people for taking work. It is punitive and it hurts seasonal industries.