Madam Chair, the hon. member asked a number of questions. I remind him that in 1991 unemployment insurance had a deficit of $4.2 billion. The previous year the cumulative surplus was $2 billion, so that left the deficit at $2 billion. The next year, 1992, there was a deficit of $2.6 billion, cumulative deficit, $4.7 billion. The following year there was another deficit of $1.2 billion, leaving a cumulative deficit of almost $6 billion in those three years alone.
Surely the hon. member realizes that is not the way a prudent fiscal house should be run and is not a way to help the unemployed. At the same time there were increases in unemployment insurance premiums which again hurt the job efforts at those times.
We are running the surplus in the UI fund to prevent that sort of thing from happening again.
The hon. member also asked about duplication. At times there have been questions of duplication. We have done an enormous job over the last two and half years to eliminate duplication in government services in helping the provinces.
In my field we are working right now on a Canadian securities commission. We are trying with the provinces to get their co-operation. Do we get that co-operation from Quebec? Not yet but we hope to. Do we have the Bloc telling us it is a good idea to put a Canadian securities commission in? Is it a good idea to reduce the overlap and duplication in the securities business? Does the Bloc come out strongly in favour of that? No. From the questions I have heard it is quite the reverse.
I do not see why the hon. member is asking me what the government has done about overlap and duplication when they are the ones who have not come out in favour of reducing overlap and duplication in an area which could obviously be made into a much easier and simpler system at the federal level.