Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding I have about 20 minutes to question the minister on this budget. I would like to ask a number of precise questions which will require precise answers. I do hope that when I ask my first question the minister will have the courtesy of not taking the remainder of the time to prevent me from asking other questions. I hope we have this understanding, otherwise I will be forced to give a speech which would not be particularly productive.
I know how responsive, intelligent and well informed the minister is, especially since the Deputy Minister of Finance is sitting next to him and can help him with technical issues.
I will begin with one of the most puzzling treatments in this budget, the issue of the revenues gained from the unemployment insurance fund. We all know that the unemployment insurance fund was set up as an independently functioning system. The requirement was that during periods when the economy had slackened there would be an opportunity for the revenues to be smaller than the expenditures and for it to run a deficit. The cumulative deficit would then have to be eliminated when there was economic prosperity. Over time this account is to balance.
The question arising from these budget plans is that since 1993-94, the beginning of the mandate of this government, projecting forward to 1997-98, the end of this budget's cycle, there is a projected cumulative surplus in this fund of $23.1 billion. I am not entirely sure about the treatment of the accumulated deficit in the past, but it was clearly $6 billion which I think will come to $17 billion but I believe some of that $6 billion had already been repaid earlier. Therefore, we ended up with, let us say, a planned surplus of $15 billion. That $15 billion is clearly a very large sum relative to the total expenditure of the entire fund. In fact it covers practically one year's outlay.
I would like to point out one other fact. Between 1996-97 and 1997-98 budgetary revenues of the Government of Canada are planned to increase by $6 billion. When these are broken down we find that $5 million of that comes from the surplus generated by the unemployment insurance system. In other words, this is an improvement in the deficit, a moving toward the target of 2 per cent of GDP being financed to the tune of more than 80 per cent out of surpluses generated by the unemployment insurance system, a surplus which is not by statute supposed to go toward financing general deficit.
Does the minister have in place any rationale for explaining why suddenly the unemployment insurance system should be made into a cash cow to improve the general deficit when clearly the legal system is, the system of the unemployment insurance system is, that it be balanced over the long run? What criteria is he using in deciding when enough is enough?