While the government is turning deaf…

So much is going on in unemployment insurance in this moment that I do not know where to start anymore. Each day and each week brings its batch of sometimes really astonishing innovations, please note the irony in this sentence. The initial announcement unemployment reform, as considered, is already a debatable and obscure decision.  Add to that the announcement of the quotas of to be respected, of higher quotas for Quebec, the abolition of several types of recourses for the people receiving benefits.  Also let us add all the commotion happening right now on provincial side on the level of health, research and for the impact of the budget cuts on the future of the people touched by the disease. Always unacceptable delays and unbelievable lack of resource.

This morning, February 22, I read the chronicle of Vincent Marissal in La Press. This article gave me much inspiration. I consider that it summarizes the current situation well. The feature of the week obviously goes to the announcement of the impromptu visits to people receiving benefits! Mr. Marrissal speaks about social shaping, plot against dignity and the decency, of one-way tickets towards the social welfare. I share his opinion on all the levels and I invite you to consult the article in question:https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/vincent-marissal/201302/21/01-4624259-et-maintenant-les-harpermacoutes.php

It is a system of management which at all does not support the social adhesion and which increases the disengagement of people. When I read, still in La Press this week that: On the whole, the Harper government will have made pass the accumulated debt of 457 billion to 628 billion – an increase of 172 billion in seven years – once the budget balance restored. There is no doubt that expenses have increased much since Stephen Harper has been in power. I find it revolting to see that such measures are put in place, in the current economic context, instead of investing this money differently to find effective solutions and helping people who would need some greatly, as well as the sick people. I do not see how the society advances in all that. There are many ways of achieving goals in life, coercion is probably not the best at present.

As deputy Anne Minnh Thu Quac denounced it:  The situation is so absurd that even conservatives of long date denounce the reform. Three former candidates chosen by Stephen Harper protested publicly that they were ashamed of their party and that they did not include/understand this eagerness. They are Bertin Denis, Al Cormier and Michel-Eric Castonguay.  Let us return to sickness benefits, this always absurd and unchanged situation in spite of the request of more than 500 000 citizens. When a great number of people receiving benefits will find themselves at minimum wage, and/or still under precarious conditions, and that they will have the bad luck to fall ill… Where will they go with their large 55% of their wages during 15 weeks to overcome this test which can easily last a year? And what happens afterwards?? Of what will be made up afterwards? Which kind of return to work will it be imposed to them?

I support all the militants who mobilize themselves against this reform and who get themselves involved concretely to oppose it.

Thank you also to all not to forget that the petition continues and that the fight with the 15 weeks modification is far from being finished.

Let us continue to link our efforts and together, let us advance things.

Marie-Hélène