Madam Speaker, I point out four facts to the minister about the unemployment insurance system. First, at the moment 23 cents of every dollar collected in premiums, clearly identified on the tax returns as premiums going to the unemployment insurance fund, are going toward fighting the general deficit.
Second, in 1997-98 the deficit of the general government is expected to be $17 billion. In that same year his budget document indicates that the unemployment insurance fund will run a $5 billion surplus.
That $5 billion surplus is of questionable appropriateness. I do not want to use the word legality. I have asked the unemployment insurance council what the law says. I did not get a clear cut answer out of this and therefore I will not use the word here.
I remind the minister the $17 billion deficit would balloon to $22 billion if this government behaves the way other governments behaved in the past with respect to the unemployment insurance fund and did not use a $5 billion surplus in order to reduce the general deficit.
During the very prolonged slump from 1990 to 1993 the accumulated deficit was $6 billion. According to his figures and the figures in the budget, the cumulative surplus accumulated will be $20 billion.
When is enough enough in order to cover for the contingency overcoming slowdown in economic activity, $20 billion in light of the fact that $6 billion was used during the prolonged, deep recession in the early 1990s?
The treatment of unemployment insurance funds at the moment is a ticking time bomb. If the minister is to be in this position come the next recession the general deficit will increase rapidly because of all the funds that have been devoted to pay the unemployed.
It is a two-edged sword. I do not believe it is in the interest of Canada to use an independent insurance fund for reducing general revenue in order to make it look good to avoid the necessary cuts all Canadians know have to be made.
I have another question for the minister. Following our earlier discussion, if I may summarize, there is $25 billion in extra tax revenue extracted per year at the end of this mandate according to his budget. That is exactly the amount by which the deficit goes down.
I ask the minister where the $14 billion in spending cuts went. He admitted it goes to paying more interest on the debt. Then I reminded him that was exactly what I expected him to say. He insisted it was not the government's fault that the $14 billion was going to service the debt.
I have the numbers here. When this government came into power the public debt was $508 billion. By the end of the expected cycle in this budget, the debt will be $619.7 billion. If calculated correctly, that is $115 billion in extra debt accumulated by this government.
That is exactly where the money saved from all the spending cuts is going, just to service the increase in the debt which was almost completely due to the fact that this government delayed the cuts. That is the point.
I have a question which I am sure the minister has been waiting for breathlessly. The government ran on the platform of jobs, jobs, jobs. The media and I have been looking and looking in this budget. We could not find any reference that was in all the preceding budgets as far as I know since the end of the second world war about what will be the level of jobs in Canada over the budget cycle and what will be the level of unemployment over the budget cycle. We found it very strange that a central promise of the election campaign was not even mentioned in the document which incorporates the centre, the focus of this government's program to deal with what it considers to be the most important issue.
I wonder whether the minister could tell the people of Canada why there was no mention of job targets or unemployment rates in the budget, or maybe I just missed that.