Yes, it is a little like Ali Baba's cave. My colleagues are in a festive mood and are recalling childhood tales. However, this is not fiction, this is a disturbing reality.
The money is pouring into a cavernous fund and the government no longer knows what to do with all of it.
The Auditor General says that if we had a little cushion of two or three billion dollars, it could help. The government should understand once and for all that it has to create an independent fund for employment insurance contributions. It must hand over the responsibility of managing this fund to those who contribute to it and delegate government representatives to ensure that the fund is well managed, if need be. We have all witnessed the Liberal government's extraordinary expertise in managing funds.
The $2 million budget for firearms grew to $1 billion. With such astounding expertise, the government could at least be allowed to delegate someone to the fund's board of directors to ensure that employers and the unemployed manage it properly.
It is vital that this be understood. If it was a real fund, those in charge of it could invest the money from it. They could set aside the two or three billion dollars they need for contingencies and, with the rest of the money, they could provide decent benefits to those who are insured against losing their job.
If you have replacement cost insurance on your car, you will pay the corresponding rates. But then you lose your car, it is stolen, and you are told “No, we have changed the policy. You are insured for the cost of replacement, but we are only going to give you 55% of the value of your car. Sorry, but that is all”. Would you be happy? No, you would not.
So, how can the government think that the workers I met in Saint-Fulgence and Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean are satisfied? We also met with workers in the Berthier—Montcalm riding, and I see them in my region. A spectacular assistance program has been announced, but it is just more party politics and propaganda and does not help anyone because it is ill suited to their needs.
If there were an independently managed fund, premiums could be increased by 55-60%. We could take a certain amount and say, for example, “There is a problem there, the cod are gone. So, a special program will need to be created to help the cod fishers”. It is true that those suffering from the cod problem are in Quebec. Fishers in the Maritimes received assistance, but it is not clear if there will be help for those in Quebec.
In any case, with an independent fund that had truly competent managers, money could be withdrawn from the fund—not stolen, not misappropriated for other purposes than those intended—but this money could be used to create special programs to assist cod fishers, because the cod are gone. These people could get help learning to do something else, getting retrained. They might become seal hunters, who knows? If they want to. But, at least, the fund managers would have some means at their disposal.
For the poor minister who has to manage the fund, there is nothing in it. When she wants to announce new programs, she has to consult with the ministers for Natural Resources, Foreign Affairs, International Trade , and Industry. By the time they get together and agree on a program, it is so watered down and whittled away that it ends up helping no one.
The second report contains very interesting recommendations, which the government should follow in order to be able to do much more for the workers who contribute to a plan.
This is what the government must understand. Strangely enough, when they where in opposition, the Liberals realized that what the Mulroney government was about to do made no sense. They said, “Elect us. We will not do that. They are really going too far. What the Conservatives want to do makes absolutely no sense”.
Once in office, the Liberals figured, “How great it would be if we were Conservatives instead of Liberals. It would be much better. Let us do what the Conservatives did; let us go ever further. Let us be even more right-wing than the Conservatives we have just defeated”. There were no Conservatives to speak of at the time anyway, which allowed the Liberals to be arrogant, even with just 38% of the vote.
Mr. Speaker, you are signalling that my time is up; I find it very sad because I would have much more to say. I hope that the government will not ignore the second report that was just tabled today.