Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General has been quite outspoken in her criticism of the employment insurance system and the surpluses that have been run up. That is money that has been taken from taxpayers without accountability. That has been taken not from taxpayers, in fact, but taken from a specific group of taxpayers, workers who have been paying into employment insurance and employers who have been creating those jobs.
I can tell the House that I do not read into anything that the Auditor General has said in regard to the approval for that tax grab of $46 billion to be taken away from the ordinary workers and employers in Canada. In fact, I read very much the opposite. There is a desire to see the system brought into account where we stop taking more than we need to run the system, where we ensure that we do not build up huge surpluses that are then diverted away to general revenues.
If the member is talking about having the government, through its general revenues, run it as a social program, that might be a different issue. However, what we have seen is a vastly politicized process of setting the employment insurance rate by the government. In fact, in the Auditor General's words, the government has been breaking the law that requires that there not be surpluses run up. Of course, it is a difficult law because it is a law that requires a certain degree of foresight. It requires looking into a crystal ball to set the rates.
It is very tough to hold people to account except in retrospect after they have made the decisions. That has been an opportunity that the government has taken advantage of to grab $46 billion from workers and employers in this county, to take $46 billion out of the economy that should be creating jobs and letting people live a better standard--