I suggest, for the reasons that have been stated, that it be clearly stated in the Act, maybe in a preamble, that the Parliament of Canada has a constitutional obligation to the jobless and to workers. As we said earlier, this is a social insurance scheme. The premiums collected under the employment insurance program have to be used exclusively for the purposes set out in the Act.
This case has taken 15 or 16 years; the Supreme Court is going to decide the issue next week. The government's jurisdiction in relation to employment insurance comes from a constitutional amendment that goes back to 1940. At that time, the provinces agreed to give the federal government jurisdiction over the unemployment insurance scheme.
Does using premiums for other purposes, at the expense of the protection that the scheme is supposed to provide for the people who pay into it, meet Parliament's constitutional obligation in relation to employment insurance?
For the reasons I stated earlier, in particular the perverse effect, this has to be clearly included in the preamble to the Act, and the wording has to be based on that first principle.