Madam Speaker, I welcome the NDP's motion. It shows an awareness of the most disadvantaged, the poorest members of society, and as long as that is where they are headed, I am with them.
I was listening to my colleague opposite praising her government, the state of the budget. But, apart from eliminating a large chunk of the deficit, what has the government done for the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society? My colleague spoke about summer jobs for students. That is not what young people want.
What young people want is permanent jobs. There are large numbers of young people who have graduated from top universities, who have BAs, MAs, PhDs, but no jobs, or jobs at starvation wages, but not in the field for which they were trained. All young people in Quebec want a job to be able to survive.
How many 25 or 30 year olds are there in deep debt and unemployed? They are told: “Give us part of what we gave you; pay back your loan”. Every six months, every month, a notice goes out asking them to pay back their loan with interest. They do not have a job.
It is shocking to say that things are going well. It is creating false hope to say: “Here is what we have done, what we will do”. It is so much hot air. What young people in my riding, and elsewhere of course, want is action.
Look at young people who are unemployed. It is said they are better educated than before and that is true. But what is the point of having four diplomas if students do not get to make use of them for years and their parents have to support them because they have nothing to live on? That is my first point.
As far as seasonal workers are concerned, there are a great many of them in my region of Matapédia—Matane. This winter, a number of people will be short 50, 60 or 75 hours to qualify for employment insurance, which I will continue to call destitution insurance, at least for the time being. What are we to do with these people this winter? It looks as if it could be a cold, long winter.
At the same time, members opposite boast: “Everything is fine, the country is prosperous”. All our colleagues across the way seem quite pleased. They lack compassion, to a certain extent. In our riding offices, we can see that people are suffering, really suffering. They are worried and increasingly depressed. They come to us and ask: “What can we do?”
I urge my hon. colleagues opposite to think for a moment about how destitute people are, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas. When bread winners cannot fish because of the cuts in fishing quotas or lose their job in the logging industry because winter is coming and roads are closing down, what are their families supposed to do?
The people across the way should ask themselves the question. What will these workers do? They will get income security. People back home are very proud to work and to work hard. They are not afraid of starting at five or six o'clock in the morning and working all day until five or six in the afternoon. Don't come and tell me that they are lazy.
The members opposite lack the will to help these people, because, often, there is something missing, but very little missing. I would like my hon. colleague to tell me if, as a member of Parliament and a woman—because there are many single mothers who suffer terribly, whose young children often have nothing for breakfast and go without dinner—she knows what this government could do to help these families, and disadvantaged families in particular?
