Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his impassioned speech. Obviously it is a subject he cares about a lot. I want to say to people watching this on TV that they should not adjust their sets. That was actually the colour of the hon. member's head. He got a little red during his speech, but we cannot fault him for that. He cares about this. He is sporting Christmas colours a little bit, so that is fine.
I want to argue that the discussion we are having today is essentially about trustworthiness. If people were to take the time to go through the Auditor General's report or through the public accounts report that deals with the employment insurance fund, they would find that starting in 1996 the government disconnected the connection between benefits and premiums.
The result is that over a period of time we saw the fund build up to the point where there is a notional surplus of about $40 billion. It is completely disconnected from where the premium levels are supposed to be. In fact when the chief actuary of the fund commented on it, he said that the premium levels should drop to a point where they are about 40ยข lower than they are today, which takes into account the 10% cut that the government has just proposed.
I want to argue that a big part of this has to do with being trustworthy. I think a powerful case can be made that the government is not trustworthy when it comes to the EI fund. However it is not the only example. There are many other examples.
I want to draw the attention of the House to other ways that governments have taken big pools of money in the past and used them for things that had nothing to do with the original intention. The Canada pension plan is one example. The excise tax, which my friend mentioned a minute ago, is another example. The GST and the public service pension plan are two other examples. There are many examples.
I just wanted to draw the attention of my friend to this and to ask him to comment on the trustworthiness of the government when it comes to these big pools of money.