Mr. Speaker, in two hours, the Minister of Finance will table his budget. People in Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord are worried. They are already dealing with fallout from changes to the employment insurance program. They hope that the government will finally wake up and realize that it has to continue investing in the economy if it does not want to sabotage and depopulate our regions.
The government must not balance the budget at the expense of our economy, our regions, our workers and our families. It must not balance the budget by cutting provincial transfers.
Canada is a huge country, with different job market realities from one region to the next. The provinces are well aware of these realities, and that is why they are in the best position to take charge of worker training.
The government has an opportunity to listen to what the people are saying. Where I come from, people want the government to invest in infrastructure and job creation. They want government measures that will spur economic recovery, not measures that interfere with what the provinces do best.