Mr. Speaker, as far as employment insurance is concerned, it is very important for people to know that, year after year for five or six years, the federal government has arranged to minimize its potential surplus. It knew very well that there would be between $5 billion and $10 billion in that account alone.
At year end, it would not necessarily have been a bad thing for the money left that was really available to be applied to the debt. But it is unacceptable that $5 billion in surplus funds was knowingly accumulated annually, when they knew right from the start that this money would be available and that it was accumulated at the expense of the unemployed, of the workers and employers who contributed to the fund. This is one of the main reasons we are voting against this budget. In fact, as long as there is no independent employment insurance fund, we will not be able to consider the government to have acted properly in this connection.
When he was the finance minister, the current Prime Minister deliberately underestimated surplus forecasts to ensure that, at the end of the day, the largest amount possible could be applied to paying down the debt. But some people paid the price for that in the meantime. It is reported that, as successful as we are at producing wealth, we still have many children who are poor in Canada today. The fault lies with the current Liberal government. It is chiefly responsible for that.