Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Indeed, I considered what you said earlier, namely, that this was not a point of order. This has enabled me to bring up the topic of comprehensive reform.
This situation, this political philosophy... Our two witnesses also brought up this political philosophy earlier. Currently, we have put so many restrictions on money coming into the fund that we now want to justify the fact that we are no longer able to pay for measures that, normally, should be included in the employment insurance program. Mr. Céré said it very well: it is not a matter of what the premiums cost, but a matter of how we use them.
During the past 13 years, $57 billion was taken from the employment insurance fund. This is money that belongs exclusively to workers and employers, since they are the ones who made the contributions. If the two successive governments had respected the primary purpose of this plan, we would not be where we are today. We would only be dealing with Bill C-241-- the wait time. That's where we would be today.
Why are we making such a big deal of this and finding it so expensive? Because we cannot take it in isolation. We are now saying--Mr. Ouellet pointed this out--that we are taking one measure. So we asked ourselves if there was one measure that could immediately benefit all the unemployed, that would not necessarily add two weeks to their benefits. And this is it.
The opposition, which is in the majority, did in fact recognize the relevance of this bill, and because of the philosophy that I described earlier, the Conservatives are grabbing on to measures that don't help the unemployed, quite the opposite.
As far as the concern raised by our two witnesses is concerned, I would also like to mention that I will be making a speech in the House in an hour and a half--and other colleagues will be doing so as well--on Bill C-308.
We are going in your direction, Mr. Lobb, because you spoke earlier about accessibility measures. In the summer, you formed a committee with the Liberals, a committee we called a phoney committee. I think that the Liberals believed in it and worked very hard. This did prove to be a phoney committee, however, but with respect to accessibility. Finally, you will have an opportunity to speak about accessibility, because you appear to be concerned about it. By next week, we should be able to give our thoughts on Bill C-308, at the second reading.
Mr. Chair, I do not necessarily have any questions for our two witnesses, but I would like them to use my comments--for the time remaining--to weigh in with their arguments, if they feel it appropriate.