Last month the First Nations people descended on Ottawa. This month it's the unemployed.
The confrontation between Stephen Harper and Canada's jobless is getting worse by the day. This coming month promises to be even hotter.
After the big meeting yesterday that amounted to 20 minutes of nothing between the federal minister Diane Finley and her Quebec counterpart Agnès Maltais, it was the turn of the big labor unions to descend on Ottawa and slam Harper for his cuts to employment insurance.
Representatives of the CNTU and the QFL handed over 10,000 postcards and a petition from more than 25,000 Quebeckers to Harper and Finley, his minister in charge of cutting off unemployment insurance.
There are already thousands of jobless people in the Atlantic Provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and elsewhere in Quebec who have been staging protests everywhere.
The NDP and Liberals have joined standing up for the jobless.
Neither Harper nor his Minister Finley is willing to give even an inch at this point. Every day in the Commons, Conservative ministers and backbenchers are referring to recipients of unemployment insurance as "crooks" and "fraudsters."
Harper desperately needs to take their money to balance his budget. He is in debt over the head - above 600 billion dollars right now, a Canadian record.
The Conservative government's unemployment cuts have forced many unemployed to accept a job chosen for them by the government at 70 percent of the last salary they received, and in some cases located up to an hour's drive from their home which hardly does wonders for family life.
In Quebec, it is estimated that the Harper cuts will destroy many seasonal industries.
Everyone thinks seasonal employment means fishing and tourism, and maybe forestry, what's left of it. But there are hundreds of other seasonal occupations - everything from agriculture to the 8,000 seasonal workers hired by the government to handle your income tax returns at this time of year.
By reducing unemployment benefits Harper hopes to save billions of dollars and a balance his budget, maybe eventually.
Most Canadians believe employment insurance is manna from Harper for people who have lost their jobs, something like welfare for the jobless.
It isn't that at all.
Actually employment insurance is bought and paid for by workers and their employers, about half and half. It is not a gift from government. It does not come out of federal coffers.
Think of employment insurance like fire insurance on your house. You pay for it, hoping you never have to collect.
Harper does not pay for your fire insurance. You pay for it.
But if your house burns down you expect to be able to collect the full amount. You don't want to be called a "crook" or a "fraudster" by some backbencher MP reading off his speaking notes.
