Mr. Speaker, I have received many complaints from laid off workers in Okanagan—Shuswap who cannot qualify for employment insurance benefits under this government's new rule. When times were good they paid in but now they cannot get benefits.
Employment insurance is supposed to be part of our Canadian social safety net. Instead of the fund being insurance for workers who get laid off, this government has been using the EI fund as its own personal piggy bank, piling up a surplus of $20 billion.
The finance minister is even trying to keep the premiums high rather than cutting them as the law requires. That this government sees itself as being above the law is the best argument yet that the EI fund must be removed from this government's back pocket and administered instead by a board of private sector employees and employers. It is their money.
This government's EI administration inside general revenues is nothing less than legalized theft. If this was in the private sector—