Mr. Speaker, it has been very entertaining to listen to my friend. His speech could have been better started with, “Once, long ago and far away”, and he could have started his fairytale that way. His explanation of how the Liberals handled employment insurance is absurd. The fact is that the Liberals constantly ran a surplus so that the employment insurance fund became a form of employment tax.
I can recall sitting on his side of the House when the finance minister, Paul Martin, stood in this place and admitted that he had taken the unemployment insurance surplus, had put it into general revenue and spent it. The money is gone. It was spent by the previous government. Let us be clear that the money no longer exists because it went out through the Liberal government. It is gone.
I do not understand how the member can possibly stand there and tell us this fairytale.