Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, guests, for coming today and providing your testimony. It's definitely appreciated.
It's important to note, and I mentioned this at our last meeting, that this is an amendment to an act. We've heard others from the Liberal Party and the Bloc talk about reform, and it's certainly an amendment to an act. The amendment will help 190,000 unemployed workers. That's a lot of Canadians who need help and who have paid into employment insurance for many years, and hopefully this will help them.
They've talked much about who they'd like to help and what they'd like to help, but their voting actions indicate they want to help nobody. They voted against this act. They had a choice to help 190,000 and they chose to help zero, and that's really unfortunate.
I wonder if you could give me a comment, Mr. Blakely, or if you could provide some insight about some recent changes to the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board. There are really two thoughts here. One is a system set up that generates excesses that go to Liberal slush funds or one that balances its books. I prefer the latter. I wonder which one you prefer.