Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate. Let me also congratulate my Bloc colleague, the member for Manicouagan, who sponsored Bill C-280.
What we are dealing with in terms of what the government has done is one of the most disgraceful acts of abuse of power that one could imagine. Let us understand the scenario.
The government, by virtue of changing the regulations and the qualifying factors for EI, has pushed virtually every worker out of the lineup for EI, whether the worker is deserving or not, because he or she no longer technically qualifies. Roughly one in four workers will qualify for EI.
At the same time, the government has taken all this extra money it has now acquired because it is not paying it out to as many workers because it has denied them access, and has used it to build up a surplus. That is a complete abuse of the consolidated revenue fund, the general accounts of the Government of Canada.
Personally I am not opposed to the notion of a consolidated revenue fund for the simple reason that government needs an opportunity to put money where it is needed. I suspect a lot of my NDP colleagues feel the same way. Crises do come up and priorities change. There are a whole host of reasons that a government would need to move money from a fund with a little extra to an area that needs help. SARS comes to mind. Money has to be found from somewhere, so it is moved around. I have no problem with that.
I give the government its due, although it breaks my heart to do it. The Conservatives in this country, regardless of whether they go by P.C. or Conservative, or in the case of British Columbia they are all wrapped up in Liberals and it is the same in Quebec, the fact of the matter is that the right-wing Tories think that tax cuts are the answer to everything. They think that cutting taxes is the answer and eventually we will not need to worry about things like the EI fund because lo and behold all these magical jobs will be created by virtue of corporate tax cuts.
We know from Ontario's experience that works great as long as the overall North American economy is booming, but as soon as it cuts back, what did the Ernie Eaves government do? It put its corporate tax cuts on hold for a year because it could not afford them. If the argument that cutting taxes generates jobs and that in turn generates new tax revenue is true and therefore they pay for themselves, then it seems to me that the worse off the economy is and the less money there is, the more we should be advocating for tax cuts because they will turn things around.
That is not the case. As soon as the North American economy went in the ditch, Ontario followed right behind. The Conservatives in Ontario were forced to put their tax cuts on hold thereby, in my opinion, putting the lie to their whole theory.
As I said, I do not have a problem with the notion of a consolidated revenue fund. However, because this tax cut mantra has reached fever proportions, at least until recently it was difficult for anyone to argue for any kind of increase in revenue to the Government of Ontario because it was a politically impossible thing to do on the doorstep.
The government and other right-wing governments across Canada have made it virtually politically impossible to run on a platform of new revenues. We need to find a way where the public will appreciate the transparency and see where the money is going. Dedicated taxes, I have already explained why I have a problem with that, but in this context it seems to be the only way that one can make a case.
The Liberals in Canada have so badly mismanaged and tainted the whole fund that it is necessary now to provide almost an artificial transparency for the public as it relates to this. Who can blame them? A surplus of $46 billion is not a bit of an overrun. Who is not in favour of running surpluses? It provides the means to reinvest the money in places in Canada that will do us the most good going into the future and will help the most people. That is no problem, but be up front about it.
What is obscene about this is that it is all being put forward as some kind of magical economic elixir that the Liberals have managed to do and that is how this happened. That is hogwash.
By the way, it bugs me that it is called the employment insurance fund. I have never understood why it is not called the unemployment insurance fund. One does not have insurance for a job; one has insurance for when one does not have a job, but that is just a personal thing.
The Liberals allow the money in the fund to accumulate, the same money over the years, but they start cutting back on who gets the benefits. They know there is going to be a huge surplus. They apply that to everything else they are doing and say, “Are we not wonderful?” No, they are not.
In the first place, the most obscene thing is that all the workers who have lost their jobs then find out the government is not even going to be there to help them out with a fund that the workers paid for. That is the maddening thing. All the workers have to pay into the fund and a quarter of them get to benefit. It was not that way when the Liberals took power. Here we are with a $46 billion accumulated surplus that the government wants to write off as being due to the Liberals being wonderful economic managers.
The only argument I have heard that to me has any substance at all is the issue of going from a four member commission to a 17 member commission. Let us understand that the commission is made up of a chair who is appointed by the House, two vice-chairs who could be the deputy ministers of two departments involved in managing the fund, and seven representatives on the employer and employee side. Why so many? The argument from my colleague who is sponsoring this bill is that one wants to ensure there is as much neutrality, impartiality and independence as possible and making sure there are appointees from outside government bureaucracy is a good way to do it.
I have heard some Conservatives mention it, but the Liberals--and I looked at the parliamentary secretary's remarks before I stood up--went on at great length to talk about how this is an abusive waste. I do not know whether it should be 14 members or 10 members, but I certainly do not think that quibbling over that number is important enough not to support the bill. It is such a small amount of money relative to the $46 billion that we are talking about that to me it is a red herring. The Liberals are looking for reasons to justify why they are opposed when in reality they just do not want their special little piggy bank to be taken away from them.
I thought my colleague, the NDP critic for EI, the member for Acadie—Bathurst, said it well the other night when he made his remarks. This is his opening comment straight from Hansard :
Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that I will not be saying this evening that the government has stolen the workers' money. It has only taken it without asking.
That is the essence of this.
At the end of the day, the details over how big the commission should be is not enough, in my opinion, to stop anybody from supporting this bill. It is obscene that there are so few workers covered by the fund. It is obscene that the government continues to accumulate massive surpluses. It is obscene that the government says there is an overall government surplus because of good fiscal management when in reality it is because it shafted the unemployed workers of this country. This bill attempts to correct that. That is why I and my colleagues in the NDP caucus will be supporting this bill, because it helps unemployed workers, as opposed to the Liberals who have been hurting them.
