Mr. Speaker, the minister said that the budget is important to the government agenda. Yes, we agree with that. Of course it is important.
However, it is important for democracy and for Canadians to debate and analyze various issues separately and apart from others. I could take the last point the minister raised on EI. He claimed that they are going to freeze EI rates under this particular bill. Will there be enough time to analyze that issue on its own?
We know the reason rates have been frozen: it is because there ended up being a bigger return on EI than the Minister of Finance originally figured there would be. The reason for that is that the attacks the Conservatives made on seasonal industries in the last budget have driven people off employment insurance, so the program is not available to them as it should be. That issue needs a full debate, and the Conservative government, with its omnibus bill, is denying those kinds of debate.