Keep the money, as the member for Saint John says. The $35 billion is just a notational entry in the finance minister's books. The government says the money is from the EI fund and it is for the finance minister to keep. However it is the workers and the employers, rich and poor, who contributed to that $35 billion. The government has the audacity to want to keep the rate as high as it is for its own purposes, for its own bookkeeping purposes.
That is what my amendment addresses. It says to let the commission do its job. The chief actuary should do his job, and when he makes a recommendation to the government or to the commission it should be acted upon. Up to now it has not been able to do anything because the government is stripping away its power.
Every time the government wants to do something, the commission kowtows to the power of the government. That is even more blatant in the act. It would completely take away the power of the commission which is wrong.
The government's intent is to maximize premiums and minimize benefits. It has a great record for doing that and the bill would allow it to continue doing that. That is one of our problems as an opposition party. We do not want to hold up the bill because there are some good parts in it that we support.
The danger in opposition is that if we hold up the bill or stall it, the government will then accuse us of holding up a bill that will do some good, which is true. Some things are right in the bill, but the truth is that the bill should have been a little wider in scope. It should not take away the power of the commission to set the rates.
The auditor general has said the same. It is wrong for the government to take away the powers of the commission and to ignore the reality that the rate could be a lot lower than it is today. The rate could be as low as $1.75 per $100 of earnings. That $1.75 could sustain the fund even during a downturn in the economy.
The government wants to take away the powers of the commission, which we feel is wrong. It has to take a look at its internal guidelines in terms of how it interprets the employment insurance act and be a little more considerate of those people who need employment insurance. The auditor general has mentioned this as well.
The investigative powers, the proficiency and the knowledge level of some of the people within the department have to be addressed. A lot of people are being unfairly discriminated against in terms of their abilities to collect employment insurance, which was borne out last night in a CBC documentary film called Country Canada . The headline story was “P.E.I. fishers fight government to clear their names”. The same thing is taking place in other parts of Canada.