Mr. Speaker, the finance minister finds himself on the horns of a dilemma because of his EI cash cow.
The minister has chosen over the past year to gouge hardworking Canadians but I advise this minister to back off before he finds out that those horns can also gouge.
The official opposition has been calling for a cut in EI premiums, not only because they are too high but because fully half those funds are not going to employment insurance at all.
There are over 900,000 small and medium size businesses in the country that can use that extra $500 per employee to create new jobs. There are nearly one million self-employed Canadians who can use the extra $850 being taken from them every year, and of course there are 14 million workers who have overcontributed $6.5 billion in income taxes in this past year who can make better use of their own money rather than financing the minister's rainy day fund.