Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thanks to the guests for coming.
I want to use the first part of my time to clarify some comments made by some of the members across the way.
First of all, the government doesn't set EI rates. We changed that a couple of years ago. We put in place an independent financing board after--as one of the witnesses noted--the Liberals took $54 billion of EI money and spent it on other things. So we put that process in place, and it was widely lauded by witnesses who came before the human resources committee at the time. Of course we're always looking for ways to improve on things, so we welcome your input on that.
The second thing I have to clarify is a previous comment about the Mexican visa situation. Of course it would be quite ridiculous to pre-announce or consult on the fact that you're going to impose a visa restriction to deal with an illegitimate refugee claimant issue. As one of the witnesses mentioned, that would lead the way to mass numbers of illegitimate refugee claimants rushing our borders to beat the deadline before the visa was imposed.
It was the previous Liberal government's long-term inability or unwillingness to deal with the issue of bogus refugee claimants--