Mr. Speaker, at the present time the unemployment insurance account is still in a deficit. That deficit was allowed to rise to $6 billion in the last recession because there was no reserve placed against it.
What is even worse is that at the same time the previous government jacked up the premium rates from about $2.05 to almost $3, a 50 per cent increase in premium rates at a time when the economy was going into recession. All that did was make the recession all that much worse.
We should learn from those lessons. We should not put Canadian workers in a position where all of a sudden money is drawn out of the economy when in fact money should be going back into the economy. One of the basic principles of this national program is to be counter-cyclical, to reinvest when times are bad and to put a surplus aside for protection when times are good.
We are learning that lesson. We are setting up a reserve fund so we can stabilize the premiums. In that way when there are problems in the economy we will not have to jack up premiums, we will not have to deficit finance, but we can make sure that we put the money back in the economy to keep jobs for Canadian workers.