The Scene. It was Jack Layton who, yesterday, tried to impose some perspective on the proceedings.

“We are talking about real people here,” he said in the Prime Minister’s general direction, implicitly acknowledging the difference between what happens here and what’s going on everywhere else.

It was Libby Davies who, filling in today for an absent Layton, dared to suggest there were morals to be found in all this.

“Mr. Speaker, the minister knows full well that the number one issue when it comes to employment insurance is eligibility. A five-week extension does not help the 57 per cent who do not qualify to begin with. This House has spoken loudly and clearly that EI eligibility must be reformed, but this Prime Minister has refused to listen,” she said, referring to an opposition motion, passed 152-140 in the House a few weeks ago, that demanded changes to the government’s distribution of aid to the unemployed.

“This is the same person who said that a prime minister ‘has a moral responsibility to respect the will of the House,’ ” she continued. “I would like to ask the Prime Minister, what happened to those morals, why is he ignoring the will of the House and denying the unemployed the EI benefits they so desperately need?”

The Prime Minister did not stand and answer this one, leaving the matter to Diane Finley, the Human Resources Minister who suggested last month that she was hesitant to make unemployment too lucrative a lifestyle and has since become the government’s primary spokeswoman on our current economic peril.

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the honourable member why she will not tell Canadians the real facts, which are that over 80 per cent of people who contribute to EI can collect the benefits,” Finley responded, repeating a figure her critics wildly and loudly dispute.

“I would also like to ask her to explain to Canadians why she and her party voted against an additional five weeks of benefits for those who need it most when they need it most,” she said, taunting the NDP with its own vote against the budget. “I would like to ask her why her party opposed providing training, not just for those who are on EI but for those who do not even qualify for EI so that those people can get the benefit of long-term training to get long-term jobs to take care of their family. Why would she not support those moves to help Canadians?”

This is, for sure, a brutal debate, having to do, as it does, with people’s livelihoods and such. One in which Finley is distinctly disadvantaged, having to answer, as she does, for the dire realities of those real people.

“Mr. Speaker, Canada is shedding jobs and fast, faster in fact than the U.S. We have a government in disarray, scrambling to make up for its inaction. We saw that clearly in its delayed response to dealing with delays,” Michael Savage had asked her earlier. “The big question is access to EI. The minister denies the problem exists. That would be funny if it were not so sad … These are real Canadian families who are scared to death, wondering how they are going to feed their children. What does she have to say to them?”

“Thanks for your support, Mike!” chirped James Moore, the Heritage Minister, from the far end of the room.

“Do something!” yelped a Liberal.

“Pathetic!” grumbled Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl.

“Mr. Speaker, our government has been very clear in our economic action plan,” responded Finley, heralding her government’s commitment to spend $60-million hiring new staff to better process the jobless.

“Mr. Speaker, that does not do anything for those who do not qualify,” snapped Savage. “Everybody else seems to know there is a problem here. It is not just opposition parties, it is social policy groups, anti-poverty organizations, labour … Why will the minister not stop denying the problem, stop the excuses, throw away her misleading statistics and think of Canadian families who are sitting at kitchen tables abandoned by the government, out of options, wondering why the EI they paid into for years is not there when they need it now?”

Finley responded with a series of statistics and assurances, doing what she could with what she had.