Madam Speaker, I cannot tell the House how proud I am to stand to speak to the opposition day motion put forward by my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst. This is an issue of vital importance, not only to the residents of his riding of Acadie--Bathurst, but across the country. The issue is unemployment insurance, now called employment insurance, and the historic cash grab of this Liberal government from that social program.
Believe me, I have some strongly held views on the subject of EI. I can say without any hesitation that this is one thing I hear about more than anything else in my riding.
I have some statistics. Let me begin my presentation with some figures. When the Liberal Government of Canada chose to use EI as a cash cow, rather than an insurance fund for the unemployed, it had a profound effect on ridings in the country, such as my own riding. I have examples from across the country. I will start with my own riding of Winnipeg Centre.
When the government changed the rules so that no one qualified any more, obviously the fund would go into a surplus position. That surplus the Liberals used for everything they chose such as paying down the deficit, giving tax breaks to Bay Street.
Members will be surprised to hear that the impact in my riding alone was that $20.8 million a year, every year since the government made those changes. My riding already is a low income riding, the third poorest riding in Canada by any statistical measurement used.
Imagine the effect of sucking $20.8 million worth of revenue out of my riding every year. The impact was felt immediately. To get our minds around the effect of that, try to consider what could be done to attract a company to a riding that has a payroll of $20.8 million per year. We would pave the streets with gold to attract new businesses. I know the riding the Speaker represents would welcome the influx of jobs like that.
We were powerless to stop the flight of capital, the exodus of that money from our riding. It was a policy decision made by the Government of Canada.
I cannot imagine anyone from Quebec voting against the simple resolution my colleague has put forward today to try to reverse this trend. I have the figures here for Quebec. I will quote a couple of them.
In the riding of Champlain the effect of the cuts to EI was $59.5 million per year, every year. In the riding of Charlevoix the cuts to EI were $50.1 million per year. In the riding of Bourassa it was $42.9 million per year. That is the effect of the cuts to EI when the Liberal government changed EI so that nobody qualified any more and started to use it as a cash cow. It makes me angry just thinking about it.
This was a deliberate policy when the Liberals found themselves in a deficit situation when they took over. They realized they had a deficit of which they had to take care. Where did the government look for revenue? It was not to some kind of a growth scheme that might increase the GDP in order to increase government revenue. They took at least one-third off the backs of the unemployed.
The total cumulative surplus, from what we call this wholesale theft of our EI money, was over $50 billion. The government took in $50 billion more than it paid out.
Keep in mind that we should begin from the fact that this is not their money. Back in the 1980s, under the Brian Mulroney government, the federal government stopped paying into EI all together. All that money is contributions of the employer and the employee. Its designated use was to provide income maintenance for unemployed people should they happen to lose their jobs. That was the whole purpose of the unemployment insurance scheme.
Two changes took place. First, under Mulroney the government chose to put that money into general revenue, under the guise that if the fund ever fell into deficit, it would be the government's responsibility to make up that deficit, and that is true.