We recently did a major study on employment insurance, and in that report we did ask that the entire $57 billion be refunded—admittedly over time—back to the employment insurance fund so that we do not see these kinds of dramatic increases in premiums over the next little while. Yes, our ultimate goal is to see the $57 billion returned to the employment insurance fund.
Right now, $2 billion was put into that fund as an initial startup. That was, of course, a nice start. I want to be very clear about this: the decision the government made very recently to create the new Employment Insurance Commission was the right one. It had been ignored by governments in the past. The fact that we do now have a fund that will protect the EI base and allow it to maintain its own revenue to ensure we don't get into this glue in the future is a very good thing.
Unfortunately, the timing sucks. The fact is that we have now started this fund at the beginning of a recession, and it has meant that we now are in desperate, desperate straits with respect to employment insurance.
I am hoping we can come up with a solution. We're trying to be reasonable about this, but ultimately, yes, that money was taken out of the pockets of employers and employees across this country who were paying higher premiums than were needed to pay for the cost of the program. Ultimately, we think over time that money needs to be returned.
In the short term, we figure that at least a reserve of $10 billion to $15 billion would help us ride out this kind of time. At the very least, we're hoping that governments, again using the methodology that was already put in place in the 2009 budget, can help us through this particular challenge, so we don't see huge increases in employment insurance over the next decade, which we will see for sure.