Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada generates its revenues from four or five sources: personal income tax, corporate tax, GST, employment insurance premiums, excise taxes, and there are a few others. He complains that only 45% of people will draw from employment insurance. I remind the hon. member that this is an insurance fund, and similarly, if I have an automobile and I purchase insurance, my insurance company bets on the notion that I will not be drawing on that insurance even though I am paying for it.
That is the very notion of insurance and the premiums are calculated on the basis that only 45% will actually draw on insurance. If in fact he thinks that it should be a 100% draw, we would have to up the premiums. We cannot have both ways. I find the point of his question somewhat difficult to discern.
As to the issue of seniors, we made a platform commitment to increase the guaranteed income supplement to seniors and that will be one of the priorities to be addressed by the government. I would remind members that seniors in this country actually do very well. In fact, as ranked in the OECD, they are number one. That has been a development over the last number of years. If we run surpluses, the actual net wealth of seniors has increased. In all of the OECD countries, we have gone from a position of something like 12 to number one, and that is something to be celebrated.