Mr. Speaker, I particularly want the opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-50 because it has such a profound effect on the working people in my riding.
I want to start with a bit of history. When the Liberals gutted the EI system, and I mean gutted--they cut and hacked and slashed the EI system to the point where it was a shadow of its former self and completely ineffective as an income security machine--it took $20 million a year out of my riding in income maintenance that used to flow from the EI system.
In that one riding of downtown Winnipeg, $20 million a year of federal money that used to flow into my riding no longer did because they changed the rules so that no one qualified anymore. Then they started milking it like a cash cow, spending the money that was obviously going to accumulate. Workers had no choice but to pay into the program, but nothing was getting paid out. They spent that money that was supposed to be for income maintenance of unemployed workers on the--