Mr. Speaker, that is right. The government would have us believe the EI plan is a social security system.
What the government wants is that retirees who have worked all their life pay into a social security system. It wants to have people on welfare pay for a social security system. It wants these people to pay for the unemployed while we used to have in Canada a plan called unemployment insurance. It used to be the workers and the companies that were responsible for workers. It used to be that way.
Then the government came up with this idea and now the Canadian Alliance has adopted it. Out West they say “Cut employment insurance”. In Ottawa, they say “Cut employment insurance”. They come to our ridings at election time and say “If we are elected, we will increase the employment insurance coverage”. They have it all wrong.
It is not a social security system, it is an employment insurance plan.