Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is avoiding the question. We are saying that, of all the government's program cuts in connection with transfers to the provinces, 82 per cent of the cuts were made to the UI fund. This is what we are saying today. And this is what he is trying to get round.
I would ask him the following question. Does the Prime Minister realize that his approach to reducing the deficit through the unemployment insurance surplus is unconscionable and testifies to his inability to improve the state of public finances other than by imposing a job tax? What his employment insurance amounts to then is a job tax.