Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Liberal member giving the Liberal vision for the use of the employment insurance fund.
Unfortunately for him and fortunately for the NDP, we believe that this money belongs to the unemployed. I invite him to read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's response. He even suggested other ways to use the EI surplus, but only to help the unemployed.
With the $3 billion surplus, we could have expanded the program to 130,000 additional workers, which would have increased the percentage of workers with access to employment insurance from 39.5% to 51%. At present, only 39% of workers have access to employment insurance.
We could also have reduced the number of hours required to be eligible for benefits. That would have been a good move. We could have increased workers' benefits. Instead of paying them 55% of their salary, we would have had the means to pay them 68% of their salary. However, the government prefers to pay other bills with this money.
Unemployed workers' money belongs to them.