—that it would have been far preferable had EI dollars not been taken out of the fund and transferred into general revenue for many years, and the problems that we're experiencing with employment insurance today would be far fewer if that had not been allowed to happen. There would have been a reserve built into the employment insurance fund that would have allowed us to ride out the recession very easily, had that not occurred. I think the decisions of the past have exacerbated the problem.
I will say that the current government took some very courageous and very strong, positive decisions when it separated out the EI fund and created it in a separate fund, protecting it from the general revenue of the Government of Canada. That was the right decision the government made; unfortunately the timing sucked. The problem is that it happened right before a recession, and therefore the fund was in great peril.
I will say that for a variety of reasons our members do not favour an expansion of employment insurance benefits, even quite apart from the premium issue. As we come out of the recession we're going to be facing a shortage of labour. We don't want to contribute to a problem wherein employees find it better to stay on unemployment than to get back to work.