Mr. Speaker, I will be brief.
I listened very carefully to the member for Sherbrooke. I was puzzled because he was a member of the cabinet under the Mulroney government and he has the audacity to stand in the House and talk about EI premium reductions. I am confused because sometimes he refers to them as premiums and sometimes as taxes.
I would like to ask him what decrease they made during their mandate when he was a cabinet minister, contrary to when this government took office in 1993 and reduced the EI premiums to the tune of $1.4 billion.
He talks about unemployment today being at 9.1% when under the Conservative administration it was almost 11.5%. However, we have created over a million jobs. He also talks about making the system sustainable.
He calls the EI contributions taxes, but I call them premiums. However, they kept raising the premiums because there was no reserve to fall back on in difficult times when there was high unemployment.
He talked about offsetting them with payroll deductions. He talked about them in terms of deductions, in terms of payroll taxes. He talks about sustainability. We are looking toward an era of sustainability.
He talked about an independent investment fund. That has already been put in place. I do not know where the member has been. I know he is in the House today. He is often in the House. We have already brought forward an independent investment fund.
I am more confused when he talks about an $11 billion tax bite. That is just not true. I say to the member, through you, Mr. Speaker, that is being intellectually dishonest because this is money put aside for pensions for the future.