Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to join my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst in pointing out some of the many shortcomings of Bill C-2.
I will start by saying that I admire the work the member for Acadie—Bathurst has done. He is, probably more than any member of parliament, a leading authority on the subject. He took it upon himself to travel to every province in the country, I believe 28 cities and communities, to listen to workers and employers about EI and other issues. He then wrote a very good report on the subject. I urge all members to get a copy of the report and to listen to what people who really care about these issues have been telling us.
I am pleased to add to the comments of the member for Acadie—Bathurst. He quite correctly pointed out that although there are some elements in Bill C-2 that we can support, such as doing away with the intensity rule and raising the clawback provisions to a reasonable level, it fails to address the real problem with employment insurance which is that hardly anyone qualifies any more. The bar is set so high on the eligibility rules that less than 40% of all unemployed people qualify. What kind of an employment insurance system—