Mr. Speaker, on October 4, I asked a question of the Minister for Human Resources Development regarding the unanimous report from members on the EI plan. It is important to remind the House that members of all parties worked on that report.
The report recommended 17 changes to the employment insurance plan, which was deemed insufficient and unacceptable as a social safety net for people who lose their jobs.
I raised the question at that time. It was the beginning of October, a short time after the events of September 11. There was indeed an awareness that changes would have to be made to the EI plan. The minister answered my question then the same way she did today, saying that the plan was working very well and that changes were made through Bill C-2, which abolished the intensity rules, among other things.
The minister noted that we voted against that bill. We did because the bill provided that, as soon as it became law, the government could decide to do as it pleases with the EI fund surplus and establish the contribution rates based on its general funding needs.
In our opinion, the EI should guarantee people a minimum income when they have lost their jobs. The intensity rule, which had been abolished, to give hon. members an idea of its relative importance, represents a saving of some $100 million per year, whereas this year, as in past years, there will be a surplus of close to $8 billion in the fund. So the amount associated with the intensity rule is less than 1% of the surplus.
This means that, at most, all of the measures contained in Bill C-2 would represent a recovery of 2% or 3% of the $8 billion surplus. That is not what our fellow citizens said during the election campaign. They spoke of their desire for a balanced program, one that would ensure people's contributions would provide them with sufficient income when they were unemployed.
There are two ways to do that: either lower the contribution rate or improve eligibility conditions. The problem with our Employment Insurance program is that there is a third party, the federal government, which does not contribute to it but helps itself to huge amounts of money in order to finance its other expenditures.
I believe that, when it does this, it diverts the funds from their primary purpose, which is to ensure a proper employment insurance plan, something we do not have at the moment.
Regrettably, closings were announced once again today in the softwood lumber industry, and everyone in Canada, Quebecers and Canadians, are being called upon to join together so that our position prevails with the Americans.
We would have expected that the federal government, which has done its share in the negotiations with Ottawa, would sympathize with the people who are the most affected by these closings, that is the people who are now unemployed.
Could the government not have taken advantage of the unanimous report tabled in the House, which the Liberal members participated in and which called for major changes to the employment insurance plan? This is the question that always goes unanswered.
Now as the federal government is generating a $8 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund, why is it not able to ensure reasonable fairness with the tool it has to use in its fight against poverty?
Can the government give us an answer and finally agree to make changes in this direction? Until now, we have not received a convincing answer.