Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I want to thank our colleague Mr. Godin for tabling his bill. It is entirely relevant and consistent with the positions he has held, and that his party and we have held, throughout the debate that we have had on employment insurance.
As Mr. Cuzner rightly recalled earlier, important work was done, particularly in 2004 and 2005, when a subcommittee was struck to study employment insurance reform. There were 28 recommendations. Two of those are represented in the measures put forward this morning by our colleague Mr. Godin.
Incidentally, at the time that work was done, Mr. Malcolm Brown, Assistant Deputy Minister at the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development at the time, now Human Resources and Social Development Canada, came to testify before us on December 7, 2005. He told us, in response to a request that one of us had made to him, that the principle of the 12 best weeks would cost $320 million and would affect 470,000 unemployed workers. That's not nothing. That measure had an impact, in terms of efficiency. He told us that, if the qualification requirement were lowered to 360 hours, that would cost $390 million and affect 90,000 unemployed workers.
There was no doubt about the answer to the question that we had studied, that is whether we could make that kind of financial commitment to the fund, since the surpluses generated by the fund were in the order of $3 billion a year at the time. You'll remember that the surplus was $7 billion in 1997. Approximately $3 billion of the surplus was applied against the debt. Our colleague told us that earlier.
That being stated, what is a bit awkward in all that, Mr. Chairman, is that we are talking through both sides of our mouth. That's the problem in improving the employment insurance system. It's on that subject that I am speaking to my colleague. Politically, we're doing very good work that is producing results. Eight recommendations came out of that report and were unanimously adopted by all parties on December 16, 2004. That concerned the independent fund, an administration managed on a majority basis by those contributing to it, employers and employees, and the repayment into the fund of the $46 billion that had been diverted from it. Twenty more recommendations were adopted on February 15, 2005. That one, I recall, was among them.
In terms of consistency, I would emphasize right away that we have to see how we can manage to introduce a bill that corresponds to those requests, to those two measures, and that is passed by the House. That's the work we have to do, and it's on that point that I'm speaking to my colleague. We've constantly been coming back to this, me included, for some time now. What's missing? The finding is virtually unanimous: it makes no sense that, of all those who contribute to employment insurance, only some 40% can draw benefits, and that there is no way to improve this system. What's missing?