Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today, although I would have preferred to do so under different circumstances.
Of course, I am pleased to speak about the budget, but first I want to express my solidarity with the workers and their families from the Arbec plant in Port‑Cartier, which announced less than 24 hours ago that more than 100 employees in my region would be losing their jobs. One hundred employees is 100 families. Many people are losing their jobs just before Christmas because the plant is closing indefinitely.
Of course, I stand with these workers. I would like to take this opportunity to challenge the government, which likes to talk about a “strong Canada” and claims to be creating jobs but then turns its back on all my constituents. Yesterday, even before learning about the closure of the Arbec plant, I had the opportunity to ask the Secretary of State for Labour some questions, which he was unable to answer. I expected a lot more from this government, which boasts about creating jobs and making the Canadian economy the strongest ever. In fact, long before the budget was tabled, the Prime Minister had already sent a message to workers, telling them to look elsewhere, to upgrade their skills and to do something other than pursue a career in the forestry industry.
In my opinion, this does not send a very positive signal to the forestry industry. Even before the budget was presented, these workers had already been told that they were being abandoned. Now the budget confirms it. No funds are earmarked for forestry workers or the forestry sector in general. However, the budget does provide funds for pipelines and the western economy. Once again, the forestry sector is being abandoned.
Everyone knows that Bloc Québécois members talk about independence in the House. Given this situation, my colleagues will understand why we would rather manage our own money. For more than a decade, we have been living in a petro-monarchy where money is spent on polluting natural resources, namely dirty oil. The Bloc Québécois wants something else for Quebec: a sustainable future for ourselves, for our children, for future generations and for the planet. We would like to see the money invested in other things, but that is not what we are seeing here. Once again, the government is failing to support the forestry industry. I hope the secretary of state or the minister will be able to respond.
It is one thing to talk about forestry workers, but the solution is actually quite simple. We had requested a wage subsidy to maintain the employment relationship, as a strong signal to show that the government believes in the forestry industry. This request was denied.
We are not asking for loan guarantees. When things are going badly financially, no one wants to take out a loan when they do not know what tomorrow will bring. What the Bloc Québécois is asking for is an advance on countervailing and anti-dumping duties, and that is what the industry wants. However, we have still not received a response from this government. This measure should have been included in the budget. True, the auto industry is in crisis. The steel industry is also in crisis; we produce steel back home too. However, forestry is important. It is truly the identity of my region that is at stake today.
I would now like to discuss Correctional Service Canada. The budget calls for significant cuts of 15%. There is a penitentiary in my riding, and the correctional officers are worried about their future. Resources are already short, in terms of both personnel and security, and officers are not being provided with what they need to do their jobs. Now the government has decided to cut their pension funds. However, a pension fund is part of the negotiated salary. It is not separate. At a certain point, during collective agreement negotiations, workers decided to invest part of their salary in a pension fund. What the government is telling them is that what they negotiated does not matter and that it has decided to cut their pension fund. If that is what it means to help workers and build a strong Canada, then, as everyone already knows, I do not want to be part of Canada.
As for EI, which is very important in my riding, it is vital to remember that those who apply for EI are not doing it by choice. They are doing it because they have been hit hard, like the workers at the Arbec mill right now. In a rural region like ours, these tough setbacks also affect seasonal industries. Let me just mention that it is the industries that are seasonal, not the workers.
Workers want to work, but things need to get developed for work to happen. We have not even reached the development stage. Villages and entire communities are dying because this government does not want to lend a hand. It could tell workers that it is going to help them get through the year and get through the spring gap, that they can stay home and that someday, something might be developed. Right now, it is sending them the message, in the forestry industry anyway, that they are not important. It is sending the message that it does not want fisheries. It does not want or care about tourism. People who plant trees in the forestry sector do not matter.
For 10 years, the government has been saying that it plans to overhaul EI. EI is supposed to help workers, but it is not fit for purpose yet. For 10 years, I think that we still believed that reform was on the way. Now, no one expects the reform to happen. There is nothing, just nothing.
Helping workers also means helping young people. We know that the youth unemployment rate is high. We studied this in committee. Young people cannot even access EI benefits. As a result, young people's life plans and academic goals are at risk because they are not receiving support either.
Let us talk about the Canadian Union of Public Employees. The government says it is going to create jobs, but it is also going to eliminate 40,000 jobs. I want to know whether the jobs the government says it is going to create are quality jobs. There are a few numbers floating around. Will those jobs be unionized? Will those jobs come with benefits? Will those jobs be full-time jobs? Is it creating jobs just to create jobs? Does it even matter, given that the government has decided that cuts were necessary and that it thinks that good jobs are expensive?
That is another message the government is sending. It is saying that jobs do not necessarily need to pay well and that the public service is useless. In a region like mine where it is difficult or even impossible to access services, these people do crucial work, but they are not recognized for it. The government is once again eliminating jobs after promising to create them. The Canadian Labour Congress has asked how the government plans to create jobs by eliminating tens of thousands of them.
Let us talk about Canada Post. That interests me. I think its situation is rather unusual. The Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement was going on about how much it costs to operate Canada Post, how unbelievably expensive it is and how the government can no longer provide this service. The minister did not even refer to it as an essential service. I would like to remind the House that Canada Post reporter that half of its second-quarter losses, about $253.5 million, occurred in June. Oddly enough, June is when Purolator suddenly began offering a 65% discount specifically to Canada Post customers. For those who may not know, Canada Post owns Purolator. It owns a 91% stake in Purolator.
What Canada Post is doing is corporate cannibalism. Canada Post is basically eating into its own profits with Purolator's help. Yes, we want mail to be delivered. Of course we want it to be convenient and beneficial for all our businesses and for the entire population. However, in my opinion, there is a real lack of good faith here. The numbers are being fiddled. People know they can make numbers say just about anything. If we are being at all honest, I think that these numbers reflect a desire, probably on the part of Canada Post, to kill Canada Post.
I will conclude by saying that this is hypocrisy. It is not even budgetary window dressing. The government also boasted about passing anti-scab legislation. In the case of Canada Post, it seems that the situation is still going on because it is always possible to find replacement workers.
I also stand in solidarity with Canada Post workers and all the workers I mentioned, because the Bloc Québécois stands up for workers. We do not just pretend to stand up for them.