My take on the matter is that the employment insurance system needs to be improved and that the eligibility criteria must be relaxed. This single eligibility criteria is no different from the health care single eligibility criterion. Medicare does not make a distinction between the various regions based on whether there are fewer or more sick people. Access to the health care system is universal. Employment insurance does not cause unemployment. Occupational health and safety systems don't cause workplace illness or accidents. If you have an accident at work—and I don't wish this on anybody and I'm glad that we instituted universal social systems years ago—or if you have a work-related illness, you're protected. When you have health problems, you have access to health care. Thank God, because it would be a bloody struggle if we didn't have access to a health care system. The same is true of employment insurance: an employment insurance system protecting workers is important.
I'd like to take this opportunity to make an aside. I respect employers. We've often had an opportunity of collaborating with them. Just two weeks ago, I was with the heads of Packard, a big Montreal area auto company. It is not a “hole-in-the-wall” kind of place, it's a company that employs over 1,000 people and makes trucks. It is having economic difficulties and orders are down because manufacturing has gone south. They needed information on the shared-work and employment insurance system. If you give these people access to pre-retirement, will they be entitled to employment insurance with the possibility of returning to work at some point in time? They need these workers who are familiar with the equipment and have experience. The employers need employment insurance to cover these workers at difficult intervals. They don't want to see them go to Alberta or elsewhere.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I'll take 15 seconds to say this. Once again I strongly urge you to find a majority. I didn't say “a consensus”. Why didn't I say that? Because we're not expecting anything from the Conservative Party.