Thank you very much.
Let me begin by, of course, thanking you for this opportunity. In the short time allocated to me, I am going to try to talk about three complex issues: jobs, employment insurance, and pensions.
As you all know, this province was the economic engine of our country at one point. We are going through an economic crisis like I've certainly never seen in my lifetime, and I suspect you haven't. Unlike the recessions we saw in 1982 and 1992, there aren't massive layoffs; there are massive plant closures. In effect, those jobs are gone. They haven't laid people off to have them come back in the near future.
If you've had the opportunity to travel in northern Ontario to Kenora, Marathon, Thunder Bay, and Dryden, as I often do, you'll find communities with 40% and 50% unemployment, where the mill in the town is gone. It has closed. In many cases, it was the single employer. In one town I was in, the actual scrap metal for the mill was worth more than the mill, and that's not to say what the impact is on those families. If you travel down the 401 corridor to Kitchener, London, and Windsor, you'll see unprecedented impacts on communities.
I went through the recessions in 1982 and 1992. I had to collect unemployment insurance. Many people today can't collect it. There's something wrong with that. I'm sure you talk to people who are suffering. I'm less sure about how you face them when you know that there's a surplus of more than $50 billion in that fund and they can't get coverage in a plan that they paid into.
This issue also connects into....
Do you think that's funny? Excuse me. Did I say something funny?