Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-363. I am always pleased to be in the House at the same time as the hon. member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell because he is such a great presenter. He never misses a chance to ensure that in his speech he manages to give the government some credit for jobs that are done actually by people who are at arm's length from the government.
I would like to congratulate the management of the CMHC who has been able to operate that institution despite the bad management of the government. Hats off to the CMHC and thumbs down to the Liberal Government of Canada. That applies in many jurisdictions across this country, in provinces and cities, that manage to operate in a fiscally sound with responsible manner despite the bad management of the Government of Canada.
While Bill C-363, an act to amend the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation with regard to distributing surplus profits from its insurance fund, is a noble bill, my party cannot support it because we think the direction of the CMHC to get into the social housing market is actually a little misguided. We do not believe the CMHC should be directing its surplus funding into the social housing market because it would take the planning by government departments, which are responsible for social housing, out of the picture. It would allow the CMHC to simply turn over surplus funding to social housing programs without having to bring that to Parliament.
I do not think social housing needs should be met by profits generated from the CMHC, particularly profits realized from the CMHC insurance fees. Funds for social housing investments of various types should originate from federal budgets and be appropriated by Parliament giving parliamentarians the right to vote on expenditures as opposed to making the expenditures a statutory requirement. The mortgage fund of course should be operated on a sound commercial basis in accordance with sound actuarial practices, and premiums should be set accordingly.
I noticed my hon. friend made some very nice points, one being that the CMHC had reduced its mortgage premium of 30% about two years ago and that it has another 15% premium reduction on rental development. That is a good thing because what it is doing is operating the CMHC insurance fund using prudence and taking the responsibility to pass those surpluses on to the users of the fund, the people who apply to CMHC to enable them to buy a house with little or no down payment where normally they would not be able to do that.
It is rather coincidental that I am speaking on this today because my son and his new bride who live in Calgary just bought their first house. Without the CMHC and the provisions that were made available to them they would not have been able to buy that house. Hurray for the CMHC again.
I have to do some comparisons. When CMHC applies surpluses to the lowering of premiums, it could teach a lesson to the EI people. It could also teach a lesson to the government. The government should take an example from CMHC and see how it has applied surpluses to a lower premium. If only it would understand that this is the proper way to do things, it might apply reductions to the EI premiums at both the employer and the employee level to bring the premiums down to a level that actually relates to the money needed to sustain EI as well as maintain a rainy day fund in case of a downturn in the economy.
Instead, the government has not done that. Over the past 12 years, because it has refused to lower premiums in the EI program, it has amassed a $40-some billion surplus which did was not returned to the payers of the premium. That $40 billion disappeared into the general revenue of the Liberal government.
Despite calls from every party in the House, working Canadians and employers across the country, the government is still maintaining an abnormally high premium rate and an abnormally high surplus. That is far above the rainy day fund needed in case of an economic downturn. It refuses to acknowledge that the people who are paying the bill deserve to have a break on premiums.
After all these years we, the Bloc and the NDP have been talking about it, but the Liberals in their arrogance and in their desire to have this pot of cash at their fingertips so that they can feed it out to their political whims, have ignored that.
Bill C-363 would impact on general revenues by reducing CMHC profits. It would go into social housing. That is not the place that these surpluses should go. Social housing is part of another department of the government and is accountable to Parliament. That is how it should be. Potentially, by passing this bill, it could easily allow for higher than necessary insurance premiums. That would be unfortunate and it is certainly not what we want in Canada.
CMHC would be allowed to make social housing policy decisions without the input of parliamentarians. It would have the potential to utilize higher than necessary premiums for purposes other than insurance risks. Let us be clear. CMHC has a mandate. It has worked very well, as was indicated by my colleague from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, and certainly, members of the Bloc know that CMHC is an organization that is capable of generating excess revenue from its operations.
It appears to be prudently run with good management. But what is not realized is that the money should be returned in the form of lower premiums which would be even more help to young people such as my son and my daughter-in-law to enable them to buy their first house.
I spoke about the example that CMHC is setting by returning surplus funds into lower premiums. That is the thing to do. I would just mention again that the Liberals should take a lesson from the way CMHC has been responsible in recognizing who is providing the income to it, the premium payers. If the EI people would recognize that too, and recognize that by keeping artificially high premiums they are in fact decreasing the opportunity for the creation of new jobs, decreasing the opportunity for businesses to have the money to expand and create new jobs, and they are in a way putting blockades on the economy taking some leaps ahead.
We are going to oppose this bill because, while it is a noble thought, it simply does not work with the mandate or the successful operation of CMHC. I am sure that Parliament will see that Bill C-363 is not a bill that we must pass into legislation at this time.