Madam Speaker, I will just take a few minutes to speak on the bill. When I rise during private members' business, I am always in the habit of congratulating the person for being drawn. In this particular case he was high enough on the list so that he actually has a bill that we can debate.
Interestingly, one of the bills that I have in the works also deals with unemployment insurance and I will call it by that name because that is what it is. It is not employment insurance. It does nothing to insure that one has employment. It would be better if it was called perhaps income insurance. That might be a better name, but employment insurance is definitely a misnomer. I for one objected vehemently when the government spent millions of dollars to change this name two or three years ago.
Undoubtedly employment is a more positive word than unemployment, which is what the objective should be. We should have government policies and do everything we can to drive our economic indicators so that we have the maximum number of jobs. The ultimate program is one that would create long term meaningful jobs with benefits available to the workers and their families.
I would like to commend the member for being able to have his bill debated and to talk about the employment insurance act as it now stands.
There is no doubt that the government has done the workers and particularly small businesses of the nation a tremendous disservice by taking billions of dollars out of their pockets and rolling it into general revenue where unfortunately the government wastes so much of it through boondoggles. The overrun on the gun registry is the biggest one that we have in front of us these days. What a shame it is when there are many people who are either overtaxed or, as the member contends, not benefiting from the insurance program for the unemployed.
As my colleague from Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan said earlier, we cannot say theft or embezzlement, so we have to say some other things. However, it is money that is taken inappropriately for reasons for which it was not originally intended.
I also wish to commend the member for wanting to have a trust fund independently administered so that the government cannot get its clammy hands on the workers' money.