Mr. Speaker, the finance critic must realize that employment insurance is itself a fund in which there are deficits some years, which have to be balanced out by surpluses.
A few years ago, the unemployment insurance fund deficit was over $10 billion. Now we have to make sure that we will not be obliged to penalize Canadian workers and employers in a few years by again raising rates to where they were before.
The contribution rate will fall from $3.30 to $2.80 at the beginning of 1998. It is because we are taking into consideration the needs of workers and employers that we are administering this fund as what it is: an employment insurance fund.