Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for commenting on my remarks. We will see how these measures are applied. The people will pass judgment on the reform of employment insurance as compared to the old unemployment insurance legislation.
We have seen how frustrated people are and we will see that sectors have been forgotten in this reform. The government should have made an in-depth reform, for example, with an examination of the real problem of seasonal work.
I can say that time has proven us right. We forced the government to make changes and we were the mobilizing force with respect to the impact of the measures contained in the Employment Insurance Act.
I am not saying that we are not happy with the measures proposed, but I think they do not go far enough with regard to the scope of the problem of lost jobs and the people who will continue to be denied employment insurance.
Mention should be made—and the member opposite did not refer to this—of the size of the surplus the government took from the employment insurance fund. The contributors to it are the workers and the employers and not the government. All of this money that went to reduce the deficit disappeared into the government's consolidated fund.
The government will accumulate more surplus, perhaps to a lesser degree, but it could perhaps have been a lot more generous to those who are without a job and receiving a mere 50% or 55% of their salary and who have to work a certain number of hours before they are entitled to benefits.
We will be following this matter closely, and, despite the member's enthusiasm, I am sure that the public will support us once more. The Bloc Quebecois has been here since 1993, and we have done studies on the impact of the Employment Insurance Act, and the people sided with us.