My colleague asks what the Liberals are doing with the money. They are amassing great surpluses. The money is not going back to the workers or the employers in this country.
The net result of the changes, as I said, is that one-third of Canada's unemployed now qualify for employment insurance benefits, compared to the two-thirds who qualified under the old system of unemployment insurance. It became employment insurance when they changed the name and only one-third of the people actually qualified, but under the unemployment insurance scheme, two-thirds of people who became unemployed qualified for it.
That left the EI fund with an annual surplus of several billion dollars. Was the money given back to the employers? Was it given back to the unemployed people? No, all of those extra funds went into general revenue. I do not know if it is accurate, but we are hearing now that there is no surplus in the unemployment insurance fund. I think they have spent it all in general revenue. None of it has gone back to the workers.