Mr. Speaker, first of all, I wish to welcome the Conservative Party leader, who is now back in the front row. We are happy to see him and look forward to be closer to him and to see him more often than in the last Parliament.
The Conservative Party leader should know that, when we came to office, the unemployment insurance fund showed an enormous deficit, because the Conservative government had not exercised prudence. The Conservatives had to increase premiums from $2 to $3.30, at a time when unemployment was on the rise in Canada.
These premiums were to go up to $3.30 on January 1, 1994 under the legislation passed by his party's government. We reduced them to $2.90, and will lower them again to $2.80 on January 1, 1998. We are reducing premiums gradually, but we must do so responsibly, because we still have work to do to clean up the fiscal mess we inherited in 1993 from the Conservative Party leader's government.