Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Etobicoke North cited increases in spending in the budget. In the interest of being fair and reasonable we acknowledge there were modest increases in spending. However I would ask him to review with me where some of the excess money came from which could be put toward other programs.
I would point out to the hon. member that the EI fund is showing a surplus of $750 million per month. That is not per year but per month. For every month that goes by employers and employees pay $750 million more into the fund than gets paid out in benefits. As a result my inner city riding of Winnipeg Centre has a shortfall of $20.8 million per year more than it had under the old EI program.
Would the hon. member acknowledge that another source for the money the government had to spend was the fact that the public service pension plan had a surplus of $30 billion until the end of the last parliament? Marcel Masse, and I can use his name now because he is no longer with us, scooped the entire $30 billion surplus.
These are just two sources of the money the government now feels free to introduce into modestly increased spending.
Would the hon. member acknowledge there is something wrong with an EI fund that takes in more than it pays out? Would he not agree it is seriously flawed and should have been dealt with in the budget?