Yes, Mr. Speaker, all of these user fees are in fact a tax hike on Canadians.
I want to speak specifically about EI. Both the current government and the previous Liberal government helped themselves to tens of billions of dollars in the EI fund, which meant that when there was in surplus, they took that money, and when we went into a period of high unemployment, the money was not available for the unemployed workers who had paid into the fund along with the employers.
Yes, there is a hike, but it is partly because governments helped themselves to that money, which should belong to the working people of Canada.