Mr. Speaker, measures in the February 22 budget affecting the unemployment insurance program are intended first and foremost to protect the jobs of workers across Canada.
These changes will result in lower costs for Canadian employers, contributing to an increase in exports and helping Canadian products to offer stiffer competition to imports. In fact, the UI premium reduction will lead to the preservation or creation of some 40,000 jobs.
In addition and to clarify some of the statistics mentioned by the hon. member for Mercier, the impact of these changes will be distributed fairly across all regions of the country. Even after all budget measures are implemented, workers in Quebec will continue to receive more than 31 per cent of all UI benefits paid
out in spite of the fact that Quebec only has one quarter of Canada's population.
In fact, last year Quebec received approximately $1.5 billion more in UI benefits than it paid in UI premiums.
The member for Mercier implied that changes will have a significant impact on welfare numbers. In fact, most UI recipients go from UI to a job. Three quarters of all people on UI do not use all of the weeks of benefits to which they are legally entitled. Not many of the people who use up the UI end up on welfare. It has been estimated to be about 10 per cent of those who run out of UI or about 2 per cent of 3 per cent of all UI recipients.