Minister, we actually find that that is clearly not within our purview. It's a devious way of doing things that we've seen develop in the United States, particularly by the right wing there. I'm very disappointed that the federal government is taking that approach.
However, since we don't have much time, I'm going to move on to another point. On employment insurance, I have here an opinion of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, from which I quote a paragraph on the surplus:
[Translation] It's as if the plan were being allowed to use only two of the current $54 billion dollar employment insurance surplus, and only temporarily at that. But in practice, the operation of employment insurance is being isolated by no longer allowing it to serve the purposes of the plan. Two-billion cushion: the plan should instead have a $15 billion fluctuation reserve [...] [...] the rate should be stable for an entire economic cycle, as stipulated by the 1996 act.
You're telling us you have a responsible budget. Given the current economic slowdown, wouldn't it have been a lot more reasonable to follow the recommendations, like those of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, instead of having a cushion of only $2 billion?
We know full well that the economic slowdown could very rapidly push the plan into deficit. Workers are the ones who contributed the most to the fight against the deficit. There was $54 billion, and you've reduced that to $2 billion.