Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to the member's comments regarding employment insurance. At the end of the day, the reality is that the Auditor General of Canada is the one who recommended that EI funds go into general revenues. The government might not necessarily have liked that or support the Auditor General on that, but that is the reality of it. The other reality that the member needs to be aware of is that under Liberal administrations, we saw employment insurance premiums reduced on those working from over $3 for every $100 of earnings, virtually every year, whether it was under Jean Chrétien or Paul Martin.
When we now see the Conservatives in power, their understanding of the benefits and the need to use those benefits to support industries has been prompted best by my colleagues from the Atlantic caucus who, day after day, have had to hammer the government to try to make improvements to some of the changes it has made to the system. Fortunately, from the pressure of members from the Atlantic caucus of the Liberal Party, there were some changes made but not enough.
Why has the government not treated unemployed workers with the respect necessary to allow them to sustain themselves during difficult times in industries that really are dependent on the provision of some sort of assistance?