Mr. Speaker, of course I will talk about employment insurance, after all, it is mentioned in the economic update. In fact I hope to see a reform. I thank my colleague because I love talking about this issue.
Back home, employment insurance is not just assistance, it is practically a development tool. That is a serious thing to say, but it is what it is. Some people in my riding have not had access to EI since November.
I am thinking about one fishing industry in the Lower North Shore, about some tiny villages of just 100 or 150 people, about the Newfoundlanders who came to fish. What happened? Every single employee of the plant was denied EI because of alleged fraud. It is funny. In my region, 30 or 40 people is an entire town. The entire plant apparently committed fraud and the workers got nothing.
We are asking that these people get their money now, because they need to eat and put a roof over their heads. The government can then conduct its investigation, and if some individuals committed fraud then they can pay the money back. The way things are done now is causing people to leave the regions, as is happening in my colleague's region, and that is not what we want in terms of land use, as we have mentioned.
This would be easy to do. The government did it with CERB, so it can do it with EI.