Mr. Speaker, because the NDP member was not here at that time, I would like to clarify this for the record. He used three different figures, $45 billion, $51 billion, $55 billion in terms of the surplus at EI. I just want to inform the member that back then, when the Liberal government took over, close to 12% of Canadians were unemployed and a lot of money was being paid out to unemployed Canadians. However, over the course of several years, three million jobs were created, thanks to good Liberal policy, which means that more revenue was coming in.
It is a fact that after the government addressed the payout need for the unemployed and the future, it took some of that money and put it into debt retirement and deficit elimination, which saved money for the country. It was managed well by the Liberals.