Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the whip of the opposition party, but I am a little surprised by those comments. Of course the gap can be filled.
I worked with HRSDC, the administration component to Jobs Canada. We should not tell people that they cannot have their two weeks because we cannot fill the bureaucratic backlog. I hope it is not the member's suggestion that people should be disentitled to two weeks of employment insurance because we cannot get our act together to get the money out the door.
Coming from a riding that has had high unemployment, we have had delays like the member has indicated. However, if we have the concentration of government services, it brings the weeks back down, but it is political will to ensure the necessary staff is available.
We have to go back to the Paul Martin administration, which cut Service Canada in HRSDC. It gutted that service and there has not been the backfill of those people. This is important because we need to have that bureaucratic structure.
What a stimulus that would be if instead of giving these large corporate tax cuts, which we continue to do right now as part of the budget bill, we a provided some employment for some Canadians to clear out the backlog of employment insurance claims.
The workers are out there. Many contract positions and full-time positions could be filled. There is a mixture of those two things that could happen. I would hate to see Canadians denied two weeks of unemployment insurance because we did not have the will to hire the people to process the applications.