Mr. Speaker, as you know, I am on the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development now holding consultations on social programs. The speech by the hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton made me shudder because it seems to overlook reality. It is based on the widely-held belief-too widely held in my opinion-that many unemployed workers lose their jobs on purpose. His talk of abuse almost implies that the unemployed are guilty of fraud. There may be abusers but I will start by asking him-I will have more questions later-if he can tell me what percentage of the unemployed are guilty of fraud?
His arguments sound funny when we look, for instance, at the miserly unemployment insurance fund. The human resources committee I am on heard a forecast from the minister but when we recently asked a senior official, he anticipated a surplus in the order of $2 billion in the UI fund for the year.
Now, why is there a surplus? Because UI was cut this year. The three series of cuts that he mentioned were implemented, and the hon. member seems to say that we should go even further. Let me refresh members' memories.
First, the amount of benefits was cut from 57 per cent to 55 per cent of salary; then, the benefit period was reduced to a maximum of 32 weeks.
I know that in the riding of Lévis, for example, the workers laid off by the shipyard are not unemployed voluntarily. After collecting benefits for 32 weeks, they will have no choice but to turn to their provincial government, even though the federal government picks up 50 per cent of social assistance costs, but it is still shifting responsibilities to the provincial government. The federal government is talking about making it even more difficult to collect unemployment insurance.
Yesterday, I met with students who, after completing their studies, may not be able to collect UI benefits because it would be even more difficult for someone who has not yet managed to join the labour force, as is now the case when after finally landing an insecure job a person is allowed to enrol in retraining programs.
I would ask the hon. member or another government member a little later to give us the exact percentage of voluntary unemployed who abuse the system.