Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to point out to the hon. members who just left that we were very respectful when they spoke. We did not hold parallel forums.
I am going to conclude the second part of my speech. I simply want to draw the attention of my distinguished NDP colleagues, who are about to vote on the budget. Did they read it? I imagine they did. Did they read carefully?
I refer them to pages 243, 244 and 245. The measure proposed by the NDP will generate new costs totalling between $100 million and $125 million for the government. Part of the amount of $320 million would already be committed, if the 14 week period is reduced. So, this is very little, considering the $16.3 billion budget for the year that just ended.
Let us take a look at the budget. What strikes me is the measure that the NDP is about to endorse. The government says it must spend more efficiently. This is why it launched, on December 16, 2003, an extensive exercise to review government to shift expenditures from low-priority areas—that is in the government's view—to high-priority areas. It has given the cabinet committee on expenditure review a number of responsibilities relating to cost reduction. The government says, “Savings identified in the course of expenditure review can provide the government with further funds to invest in today's priorities and tomorrow's opportunities”.
As regards these cuts, for which the expenditure review committee will be responsible, the budget includes the following, on page 245, “About $2.3 billion of the total savings will be achieved through improved efficiency in the employment insurance program, and a further $155 million in the Canada Pension Plan”. What does this mean? It means cuts in the employment insurance program. Some members might argue that these cuts will not necessarily be made to benefits, that they may target the staff, etc. That does not change anything, because these are still cuts to the system.
At the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst introduced a motion to appoint a counsellor in every employment insurance office to help the unemployed find their way through the system. It was defeated. Not only will no money be added, but $2.3 billion will be cut.
Our friends in the NDP thump their chests and say they got $4.3 billion in the negotiations over the budget. However, the Prime Minister said that only $1 billion of this is new money. When we do the math, it becomes clear that it was the unemployed who were sacrificed.
Today I am asking the NDP members who are going to vote to take a close look at that. Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the day after the vote, I would ask them to explain their decision to the unemployed, when they used to campaign alongside us to have the entire employment insurance system restored and to ensure that the money which was misappropriated—as my colleague explained earlier—is used to benefit the unemployed. Not only are our friends not moving in this direction any more, but by supporting this budget, they are going to find themselves authorizing cuts of $2.3 billion.
That is what they need to look at.
There are other aspects. I am sorry, I do not want to drown us in figures, but since we are dealing with this, let us take major corrective action. The government has done $46 billion of damage to the unemployed. This is how much it misappropriated when it managed to produce surpluses by reducing accessibility. I repeat for people who have not yet understood that of all those who contribute to employment insurance and are laid off some day, only 38% can hope to receive benefits because the constraints are so great that people are not eligible.
If all 28 recommendations of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities were taken and implemented in full, and if the measure on increasing benefits from 55% to 60% of salary were included, the additional expenditure would be $1.9 billion.
Some will ask me if that would lead to an increase in premiums. Last year, the EI fund showed a $3.3 billion surplus. Year after year, the surplus has varied from $3 billion to $7 billion. All we hear from the Liberal government is that premiums could be reduced. People who contribute to the program say that the amount of the premiums is not the problem, they can pay that. The problem is the amount of the benefits received or the ineligibility to receive benefits.
There has been a surplus each and every year, and this year will be no exception. The surplus will be $2.2 billion. That is money left after all benefits have been paid, even though premiums were reduced by 3¢ in December. There is still the issue of the $46 billion that was stolen, and I think that is the right word. That money has to be put back into the EI fund.
In short, what we are saying is that we will support the motion even though it does not address the whole issue. This motion does not solve the problems resulting from the restrictive measures imposed by the Liberal government, and we deplore that fact.
We invite members of the House not only to vote in favour of this motion, but to decide right now that they will vote in favour of Bill C-280, which is now in committee, and that they will start thinking seriously about ways of getting the EI program back on the right track. In that respect, we invite our colleagues from the Conservative Party, and also our Liberal colleagues, if they still have some common sense left and, more importantly, some sensitivity to the plight of the less fortunate in our society, to join us in voting in favour of the measures I just mentioned.