Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
First I would point out that the UI program as with every government program has to be sustainable. I would suggest that a program that has grown from an expenditure of roughly $4 billion to over $18 billion in the space of 10 years is not sustainable. That is one of the reasons why the UI program needed to be reformed.
The other reason it needed to be reformed was that it did not do a very good job in terms of helping people get back to work. Consequently that is why the Minister of Human Resources Development announced or started his social policy review.
I think the issue of unemployment insurance needs to go hand in hand with the concept that the best social security is for someone to have a job. That is why we need to spend more money on training and that sort of thing and perhaps less on benefits.