Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the hon. member's dissertation.
I heard him say scrap the UI bill. I heard him say scrap the GST. I wonder what else he wants to scrap around here. I do not here much about responsibility of the Reform Party. I do not hear it saying for $15 billion with GST revenue where that money is to come from; `poof' out of the air I suppose.
The bottom line says harmonize and make it fairer for small and medium size businesses. I travelled on the committee across the country and that is what people in Alberta, Saskatchewan and in the maritimes told us. That is what we will do as a government.
The hon. member remarkably starts talking about UI and how people are looking for jobs more and more everyday neglecting that this economy is creating jobs as we are talking here today. The reason why there are more people looking for jobs today is what is called labour force participation rate. It means as one person gets a job there is a second person who has given up looking up for a job two years ago and suddenly decides they want a job too and then joins the labour force and starts looking for a job. That is good. That is positive.
People are saying there are jobs being created and I will go out an look for one. That is positive. That is not negative.
We talk about the cost of small and medium size business. The government reduced the unemployment insurance rate from $3 per $100 to $2.95 per $100. That is good. That is positive. That reduced small and medium size business costs and is employing people. Let them increase their employment.
The hon. member talks somebody in his constituency who will end up paying more UI, and that may well be if he is hiring students. What he neglects to mention are the people working in part time employment, possibly less than 15 hours a week, who never could access the system before. He is saying it is quite all right that those people cannot access the unemployment insurance system. He thinks it is fine that because they chose part time work they have to pay benefits but have no way of receiving them. He thinks that is a fine situation.
The bottom line is this legislation attempts to make a connection between getting people back to work. It gives them an incentive to find work. It even gives them incentives to get a lower paying job if they have to do that. It provides a top-up credit to them to access new employment to get people back to work. That is not something you scrap, that is something you applaud. I wonder if the speaker could address some of these issues.