Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat surprised by comments from the government in regard to suggesting that employers circumvent the system to misuse the EI fund. Employers pay into the EI fund as well, and I actually have very good knowledge of the situation with regard to school districts that the previous member asked my colleague about.
Having been a former school trustee, I know that most schools operate 10 months a year. That is the nature of the beast. They do not operate 12 months a year. There are some school districts that operate for longer than 10 months, but for the most part throughout Canada school districts operate 10 months a year. The bottom line is that it was not a matter of school districts trying to rip off the government or anything of the kind. There were 10 months of employment. The work was in place for 10 months and then the employees were laid off and re-hired.
I find the suggestion that they were being unscrupulous really disheartening, as was the suggestion that school districts did that throughout the country. I suggest, quite frankly, that all those employees, who were making good salaries in a good many cases, paid their income tax and paid into the EI fund. It is wrong to suggest that those employers were being unscrupulous by allowing those employees to access EI during the two months when there were no jobs available.