Mr. Speaker, I agree that this is an important issue and that using opposition days to move one's agenda forward is one tool, but there are others. In that report my colleague references, there were certain recommendations that all opposition members in the committee agreed to and others that we did not agree to.
I can tell him what my concern was at that time. We were provided with what was essentially a laundry list of different changes that could be made to the EI payout schedule: that people would work fewer weeks, or that the percentage of income would be increased by 5% or 10%, or that the eligibility criteria would change.
Of course each of these changes would carry some cost. While we want to see the fund brought back into balance, I was personally concerned that we could go the other way. I actually moved a motion in committee to get the Ministry of Finance to cost each of these different ideas, including the one on the order paper today, so that at least we would have the information and know how much each of these changes would add up to. Then we could make reasonable and responsible decisions.
I said that if there is a $6 billion surplus, it is not just having 10 options that cost $1 billion each and picking the six we like most, because there are interactivities between these different functions. We would have to look at a package and have someone with an econometric model actually price it out.
I put forward that motion in committee. The NDP member of the committee voted against that motion. At that point, it raised the question in my mind as to whether there was genuine concern in terms of bringing this into balance or whether this was maybe more a political exercise in terms of driving the agenda. My interest is to bring it back into balance. I hope the NDP will work with us to get the right information so we can do that.