Madam Speaker, the hon. member asked me to delete the rhetoric from my response. I do not have any rhetoric at all.
When the hon. member first asked this question it concerned how the EI premium rate was set. In his original question he stated that every year the finance minister meets with the Employment Insurance Commission in mid-November to set the employment rates. As that statement indicates, it is very clearly false. The Minister of Finance does not meet with the employment commissioners, has no intention of meeting with them and has never met with them.
I offer the hon. member a quick lesson on how the premium is set. It is set by commissioners who are appointed after consultation with their respective organizations which are representative of workers and employers. There is the Deputy Minister and Associate Deputy Minister of Human Resources Development for the government.
It is only after the commission has set the rate that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources Development play a role. They jointly recommend the commission's rate for governor in council approval. They do not meet with the commissioners at any time to discuss the actual rate.
When the hon. member talks about EI premium cuts, he knows very clearly that since coming to office the government has continued to reduce the employment insurance premiums and will continue to do so each and every year. When we arrived the Tories had it going up. We have it going down and we will continue to do that.
We will continue to do that in balance. We know that there are Canadian priorities. The reduction of EI premiums is one of those priorities and we will continue to maintain that downward track. But we will also continue to ensure that there is balance: a balanced budget, reduction in taxes and reinvestment in health care.