Madam Speaker, I too remember the NEED program.
As the hon. member mentioned, there definitely is reason to resurrect some of the programs that worked. But if we are going to resurrect and not reinvent the wheel, we had better go back to the marketplace and discuss with people who actually use the program what happened as a direct result of the use of some of these programs.
One of the problems with that particular program was this. When the government is prepared to pay 70 per cent, what happens is that people get laid off and others get rehired to replace them. That may not be the way the program was designed but that was the effect of the program.
I would suggest further that if this kind of thing is done it should be exactly reversed. The majority of the income an employee would get would have to come from the employer, and if the government was going to top up anything, it would have to be the minority amount and not the majority amount.