I certainly agree with the question. Essentially what the government has proposed to do is to create a separate fund for employment insurance, but to take all the money out of it. The $2 billion is far less than the accumulated surplus of $54 billion in the employment insurance account. As you said, it's also far less than the $10 billion or $15 billion that the actuaries say is needed to maintain the program in a recession without premium increases.
In response to that, Mr. Whyte suggested in part that at least what's being proposed is no worse than the status quo. But I would quibble with that a little bit. The former government's position when employment insurance was part of general revenues was that if there ever were a deficit in the fund, it would be backstopped with general revenues. My concern is that now that it's being hived off from general revenues into this completely separate entity, the government may be abandoning its commitment to backstop the fund and to make sure that benefits continue without premium increases during a recession. So things could actually be getting worse as a result of the changes in Bill C-50.
I'd like to see, at the very least, the bill amended to ensure that the government continues to maintain its commitment to providing employment insurance benefits in the event of a downturn without raising premiums.