Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member give his point of view on how the budget affected him personally in his riding. I would like to share with him how the most recent budget impacted the riding of Winnipeg Centre and ask for his comments on whether he still maintains the same point of view in light of what I am about to tell him.
Winnipeg Centre is the third poorest riding in all of Canada by whatever measurement. Nothing in the most recent budget did anything to alleviate the growing gap between rich and poor in this country. The most recent budget concentrated on many of the things that the hon. member quite rightly cited, but it did nothing to alleviate or ameliorate the urgent social deficit as exemplified by a riding such as mine that is going through such hardship.
This budget failed to reach the objective on many levels. I understood that one objective was for equality. Equality in this country used to be the basic premise of the very reason that we came here. It was to make the country a better place to live, to elevate the standards of wages and living conditions of the people who needed it most and to narrow the gap between rich and poor. In that light this current budget has failed dismally.
I will deal with one specific area, the EI program, and I will ask the hon. member to comment on that. In 1990, 63% of unemployed people in my riding qualified for EI benefits. In 1999, 23% of unemployed people were eligible for EI benefits. The changes brought in by the Liberal government that were not altered in the current budget pulled $20.8 million per year out of my riding.
The current budget tinkered with minor little details but did nothing to deal with the eligibility issue and the reduction in benefits issue. Would the hon. member not agree, seeing as the EI program is showing a surplus of $750 million a month, making up a great deal of the surplus that the government enjoys, that the time was right to restore the former EI program which allowed better eligibility and qualification for people who desperately needed it in ridings like mine?