First, I think the money that was paid in by workers and employers should remain there for the purpose of providing benefits. The fact that it has been treated as general revenue for quite some time is simply unacceptable. It is not general revenue; it is a premium that has been generated to provide benefits for workers. Yes, if you look at the math between the tax cuts and the amount of money that was spent, you can argue it came from the unemployed workers of this country to a large extent.
In terms of our solution, of course, the government should reimburse the fund for the money they take out as a first step.
We also want to be very clear with this committee, and I think it's critical that we do that. We don't see EI premiums as a tax. Some may want to characterize it as that, but we don't see that. For many of our members who pay their EI premiums, it is with the expectation that they will get benefits at the end of the day. I think it is important. This is a program that is paid into jointly by employers and workers with an expectation that they will receive benefits should they lose their jobs. The unfortunate part with the 1.7 million plus the hundreds of thousands who are not qualified for benefits is that they are not receiving anything. I think that's a disservice to the program itself. More importantly, if you continue to argue that EI premiums that are paid are used for general revenue, I think you're doing a disservice to the people who actually take an interest and are defenders of the program.