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Two years ago, Monte Solberg was the Conservative minister in charge of Canada’s unemployment programs. Now, he’s an occasional columnist for the Sun Media newspaper chain.

Today he comes to the defense of his former colleague, Gerald Keddy, who apologized this week for referring to people in Halifax who choose the streets over available jobs as “no-good bastards.”

The Halifax Chronicle Herald’s Ottawa-based reporter, Stephen Maher, who wrote the original story, now reports that NDP leader Jack Layton is visiting Halifax homeless shelters today in a bid to capitalize on the controversy.

But Mr. Solberg said Mr. Keddy is being treated unfairly. He said the media interviewed disabled street people for their reaction, when Mr. Keddy’s comments were directed at people who are able to work.

“When I was minister of immigration I was stunned by the fact that even though the unemployment rate was over 10 per cent in Prince Edward Island, fish plants there had to bring in Russian workers because they couldn't find local workers,” he writes. “It seems EI paid enough that, in a very narrow sense, it was completely rational that unemployed Islanders would refuse to do those very tough and dirty jobs.”

Mr. Solberg writes that the EI program is so poorly designed that it discourages people from working.

“Keddy may have rudely misrepresented the parentage of those who refuse to take jobs on Christmas tree farms, but if you believe it is wrong to cause unemployment and to take money you're not entitled to then Gerald Keddy is absolutely justified in his anger.”