Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government just does not get it. After Liberals and Conservatives stole $57 billion from the EI fund, the Conservatives are making things even worse for the unemployed, for seasonal workers and for those in precarious or intermittent work. Now fewer than four out of ten unemployed people have access to benefits, and those benefits are being decreased. Do the Conservatives not realize that seasonal industries are an important part of our economy? They include forestry, fishery, construction and agriculture, and tourism too, which just hit the $1 billion a year mark in my province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Then Conservatives say that people do not want to work. They could join me on the planes from Atlantic Canada filled with workers off on the long commute to Alberta, to Fort McMurray and beyond, and to other parts of Canada and the world for weeks and weeks at a time. Is this a culture of defeat? I do not think so.
People want to work, and so do the unemployed, but they do not want to be treated like offenders or fraudsters, have their incomes reduced and have their communities hurt. The Conservatives should roll back these callous cuts and stop attacking the unemployed.