Madam Speaker, I am very happy today to say a few words about Bill C-17, the group of amendments proposed by the Reform Party and the way those amendments are being dealt with. I think that there are more than thirty of them. Of course, we have put about ten of them together and decided to vote on these ten amendments.
As far as I am concerned, I am in favour of some of those and against some others. Since I have to vote on a group of amendments, I find myself in a very awkward position.
That being said, I would like to talk briefly about unemployment insurance and the way this government treats our society. It is said to be a Crown corporation, but the government acts as if it was its own business. All of a sudden it decides to increase the unemployment insurance premiums, to reduce the benefit period and to increase the number of weeks that one has to work to be entitled to unemployment insurance benefits.
It is a hard blow on employers and employees who both have to pay higher premiums. At a time when recession is so hard on us, I wonder how the government can consider such a measure to be reasonable and responsible.
Madam Speaker, once again, and I am talking here only about employers, I realize that small and medium-sized businesses which will be burdened with this increase in premiums are still going to see their chances of success diminish-