Mr. Speaker, my colleague is certainly good at rewriting history, because if he were to come to my part of Ontario and talk to some of the health care and education workers and the municipalities in our area, they would definitely disagree with his analysis of whether or not some of that deficit fighting was done on the backs of provinces and municipalities. It certainly was done that way.
In regard to employment insurance, I would like to turn the question back and ask him how we could realistically or possibly even begin to think about the affordability of a 45-day work year? That is the recommendation of the party opposite. There is no way this country and the budget could possibly afford that. The plan that we have to create jobs going forward and the work-sharing program, which the EI improvements have already initiated, have been incredibly well received in my area. Work sharing allows workers not only to maintain their jobs but also employers to maintain the institutional memory of their organizations, so they do not need to retrain when those people are laid off and rehired two or three years later.