Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate and enjoy my interaction with the member from Prince Edward Island, and his passion about agriculture and agricultural issues.
Some in my community will benefit from the changes to EI but not many. There is a lot more to do.
I could not in all conscience, given that this difficult economy is affecting so many people, say no to the $1 billion for the people who will benefit from it. I appreciate that coming from his part of the country, it is going to be even worse, which is unfortunate.
He raises one of the million dollar questions, and there are a lot of questions to which we are not getting answers, about what we do as we move forward. How are we going to deal with the deficit that we are running up and what are we going to do about it? How are we going to fight it?
He suggests, as we have detected in some of the material and conversation with the government, that perhaps a payroll tax is forthcoming. My concern is it will be similar to what previous governments have done to deal with deficits, and that is programs will be cut, particularly programs that support those who are most at risk and vulnerable in our society. That will be absolutely and totally unacceptable.