Mr. Speaker, in question period today the Prime Minister referred to the recent Liberal EI proposals as adding $4 billion annually to the deficit. That is a fabrication that has been acknowledged as such on several occasions.
That $4 billion figure was manufactured and leaked by the Conservatives in August. Everybody who looked at the plan, economists and everybody else, said that was not the case. We asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to look at that. He indicated the cost was $1.2 billion. He said not only was the figure wrong but the calculation was flawed.
I know the Prime Minister would not want to be spreading fabrications and he might want to take the chance to retract that comment.