First, the $54 billion seems to be a big point of contention. I agree with most of the witnesses that it was wrong for the former Liberal government to collect the $54 billion. It never should have been collected. I have a copy of Hansard here from 2001. A member from the Bloc was questioning Finance Minister Paul Martin about this. Mr. Martin said:
Mr. Speaker, what we are doing is following the auditor general's 1986 recommendation that we include the revenue from EI premiums in our consolidated revenue fund. That is what we did.
Later on he was asked about it again. He sums up their position on this at the time:
Mr. Speaker, it is very clear, this is an accounting practice. It has been discussed on many occasions in the House. I remember giving this same answer to the member from Roberval at least three or four years ago. It does not exist. It is an accounting practice. The money comes in like other revenue, and the expenditures go out like other expenditures.
I think that was wrong, and I think most of you probably feel the same way. The reality is that the money has been spent. It's not a surplus sitting in an account somewhere. It's money that's been spent. Ultimately, if parties such as the NDP and the Bloc want to run on an election platform that would increase the debt by $54 billion or increase taxes to cover $4 billion—I think that is the number Mr. Lessard was using—they can run on that platform.
Myself, I was elected in 2006. Before that I probably paid as much into EI in the years of the previous Liberal government as I could possibly have paid. As a payer who will never see that money back, it ticks me off. It does. I'll never see that money back.