Senator Poirier: This is where I think the committee could do some work. First of all, at the moment, there isn’t even a system in place to give a voice to those who are affected by all this. There’s no one to hear them.

It is all well and good to speak with the government representatives who are here and are making the decisions, but there’s no recourse to make sure that those voices are heard. That’s where we have to start, to make sure that everyone understands. The sad thing is that many people believe that seasonal workers — I already introduced an inquiry on this subject a few years ago, perhaps before you arrived in the Senate.

There are places in the country, like New Brunswick, for example, where people work in the fishing industry, in a potato field, in agriculture or in tourism, but the season eventually comes to an end. The number of weeks of benefits they receive it isn’t good enough, especially if they have a family. We got a response right away, and everyone agreed that, yes, we need a pilot project, but we’re well beyond that now. We need to do something to fix the situation in the regions. If all seasonal work were to disappear, our country would be in a real sorry state. Thank you.