Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Hamilton Centre makes the important point of the debate. The money we are talking about, the theft we are talking about, of $54 billion is money that has been paid into the EI fund by workers and employers specifically to cushion the blow when they lose their jobs.
The fact that over 65% of men and women are not eligible to access this money is the crime that is really being perpetrated in the House. It goes beyond just the statistics.
In our hometown of Hamilton, which the member for Hamilton Centre and I obviously share, people are trying to access training dollars through EI. I do not know if members have been speaking to people in their riding, but accessing training dollars is almost impossible.
The burden that the paper process put on workers to demonstrate the skills they have used in successful careers for years are no longer needed in their community takes an inordinate amount of time just to satisfy the burden of proof. By that time, they are almost running out of their EI benefits, and training programs often take a year or two. They no longer have the EI benefits to assist them in the retraining to again accept jobs in our communities.
The EI program no doubt needs fixing today, but the government's solution of legalizing the theft is not a solution for the hard-working people in ridings like Hamilton Mountain, Hamilton Centre and right across the country.