Mr. Speaker, those words are cold comfort to Canadians waiting to receive payment for their EI claims.
I want to reiterate that according to Statistics Canada, in August we actually saw a surge in claims. In fact, when we are talking about renewal claims, that was the second month in a row that the claims increased. In addition, I mentioned the sickness benefit appeal, which was to supposedly spur an EI legislative review; instead, what we have is another claimant who has once again been denied sickness benefits.
I come back to the question that we still do not have an answer to: when will the Conservative government explain to Canadians why it is making it harder to access a program that Canadians paid into?
We have the case of maternity and sickness benefits. We have the case of Canadians who are applying and waiting inordinate amounts of time to receive payment. I am sure Canadians would be very interested in that answer.