Mr. Speaker, what an excellent question and what a wonderful opportunity to lead up to another lesson for the Liberal government.
The hon. member asking the question made allusion to the fact that the Liberals got their $60 billion by which they have reduced the debt, perhaps a lot of it, from the EI surplus.
I want to emphasize this: the EI fund is to be an insurance program, as intended in the legislation. In fact, I think if we had an impartial court and were to plead the case, we could almost accuse the Liberals there, and probably win the case, of them having absconded with money to which they were not legally entitled. I do not like to use the other words that we sometimes use, but they took money to which they were not legally entitled.
It is interesting that the chief actuary has said over the years that when the surplus in the fund reaches $15 billion, that is sufficient. Yet these Liberals have kept accepting overpayments into it in huge amounts to the tune of $45 billion.
I have another number for members, though, and I do not know if many members here recall, but it is only about four or five years ago that we had a bill in the House in which the government took out of the civil service pension fund another $30 billion.