Mr. Speaker, thank you for using the word understandable. Where the difficulty arises, which I think is completely understandable, is that if the minister stood in her place and made a statement in the House that would correct the problem.
What she said in the House was that basically we would go back to how we used to do it to allow advance clearance of those cheques. I want to quote the minister and I will also quote other members who put out press releases based on a statement made by a minister in the House. The minister stated in the House on December 7, and I quote from Hansard :
I can confirm for the hon. member that we will ensure, as has been the case in the past, that EI claimants will be able to request in advance a cheque before Christmas.
The key word is cheque. As we have found out and as confirmed by her department today, claimants will get only half a cheque. In the meantime members of parliament have--