Madam Speaker, I appreciate that but please do not ruin my fun. Half the fun is watching them react and getting them going because that is when we start to see the real members. I would ask that they not be shy on my account and let it rip.
There are a couple of things I want to raise that are here. The Conservatives talk about us not knowing what is in the budget, and our friends in the Liberal caucus are having fun with that drumbeat too, but I have something to tell the House. There is something called the strategic review of programs, which sounds pretty official. What it means is that over three years the government will eliminate $1.3 billion in current money being spent in programs, but we do not know which programs.
Therefore, I say to everyone who is watching who feels that there are parts of the budget they like, that they had better keep an eye on the prize. Until we know what those cuts mean, it may be a program that affects someone who is watching or someone who knows of a family member, a business or a community that is using a program. The $1.3 billion coming out of program spending will hurt somewhere, someone and something. We just do not know what.
Then, of course, thanks to my friend from Ottawa Centre who has been following this like a laser beam, we have almost $10 billion that shows as revenue. Where will the revenue come from? We are not really sure. The government just tells us that it will sell things. What things? We do not know, but $10 billion means a lot of things will be gone. What a lousy time to be selling anything, if we are talking about real estate, which is what most of it is, unless it is going to tap into the art gallery and start selling pieces of art.
I say, with respect, that members do not need to talk to me about passing a budget that members have read or not read. There are things in the budget that no one in this entire House knows in detail what will be cut.
I want to take a minute to talk about EI. I know it has been talked about by a lot of people but I am from Hamilton and we are hurting. We are losing thousands and thousands of jobs every month. When we talk about the manufacturing sector being hit hard, that is Hamilton. This hits home for me.
For every $60 in corporate tax cuts that the government could find, it found $1 to help the unemployed. On the five week extension, let me put on the record what Don Fraser, president of the Hamilton and District Labour Council, said about that. He said:
That extra five weeks, in the greater scheme of things, is just window dressing.
It is all window dressing because the government still has not made the fundamental changes to the system. Even if someone were to benefit from that, the total dollar value for that five weeks is $11 million. This year the national budget is about $258 billion, give or take a few million. The give or take is probably more that the actual increase in benefits that unemployed workers saw.
It is unfathomable in this day and age in the middle of a crisis, with people losing jobs hand over fist, and the one thing the government does not do is help those people and families survive. What an abdication of responsibility.
What is the government's rationale, one might ask reasonably. Let us ask the government. This is the minister responsible, in her own words, “We do not want to make it lucrative home and get paid for it”.
I defy any member of the government to repeat that in front of unemployed Hamiltonians who have just been rejected for EI, who do not know how they will pay the rent or make the mortgage payment, who have birthdays and graduations coming up, but who have no money and no hope. Eleven million dollars are pitiful.
Of the 100% of people who pay EI, 32% of women and 38% of men qualify. Let me put it the other way around. We have an insurance program run by the national government, but paid for by premiums from workers and employers, not tax money. This means that 68% of the women and 62% of the men who paid into EI will not even qualify.
We are worried about people who are on EI because it is not enough to sustain them, but what about those who do not even qualify? Those people get to go on welfare after a lifetime of working.
The Conservative government had a chance to treat Canadian workers, particularly those who are or going to become unemployed, with dignity and give them hope and recognize that their lives and their challenges are important, but it failed them.