Mr. Speaker, first off, I congratulate my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup on the quality of his speech and on highlighting the major shortcomings of this throne speech, namely as concerns the social safety net for the public in general and workers in particular. I am grateful to him as well for stressing the employment insurance program.
I would like to hear what he has to say about the fate of the employment insurance fund over the years. How is it that, today, nearly 60% of workers contributing to EI cannot expect to receive benefits when they are laid off? How did the misappropriation of the fund occur over the past 10 years? We will likely see the impact that has had on the employment insurance program, of course, and on the use made of the funds.
In short, should the money misappropriated from the EI fund be returned to it and how must that be done?