Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the Liberal who just spoke and couple of things came to mind.
First, I just realized that she felt compelled to get into talking about provincial politics to try to make a point about the federal government. I could not quite figure that out.
Let us talk about the federal government. The federal government, in the area of EI funds, “I” standing for insurance, has generated an absolutely humongous surplus: $20 billion, $30 billion, $40 billion. I think we have lost track. The finance minister himself has said that the EI fund, which is way oversubscribed, in the billions of dollars, has gone into general revenue, that there is no surplus in the EI fund. In fact, employment insurance is not correctly called. It is an employment tax.
I would particularly like to draw her attention to the fact that with the $24 fee that she was touting about making our skies safer, it not only makes the smaller aircraft and the shorter runs far less competitive, literally driving those airline companies out of the sky because it makes them uncompetitive, that money also, like with the employment insurance fund, will be going into general revenue.
How can she say that there have been tax decreases and proper management of the finances of Canada when in fact we have the history of the finance minister putting the money into the general fund?