Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the minister.
Minister, the changes you announced to employment insurance last week are making waves, as you know, right across the country, especially in Atlantic Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador. One would assume they're going to involve considerable monitoring of the behaviour of EI claimants. At the same time, your government is cutting in terms of staffing and budgets—the cuts we've heard about now for weeks, for months—for both citizen-centred services and integrity in processing.
My question is this, wouldn't any new moneys be best spent on helping claimants as opposed to harassing claimants?