Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Since Friday, the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Labour have been repeating the refrain that the federal government will not use the unemployment insurance fund surplus to reduce its deficit, but will instead put it into a separate reserve fund. Need I remind the Minister of Finance that, in his 1995 budget, pages 89
and 94, he took those surpluses into account in calculating the revenues and expenditures of the federal government?
Are we to conclude from the statements by the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Labour that the Minister of Finance has decided to set up an unemployment insurance reserve fund and to give up on his plan to apply UI surpluses to the federal government's revenues and expenditures?