Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Etobicoke North accused me of playing political games, when in fact I am playing mathematical games.
I am asking this question for the third Liberal MP and I am certainly hoping to get an answer this time.
The Liberal proposal would give an exemption in EI premiums to businesses for each new hiring. They expect that this measure would create 176,000 net new jobs. When we talk about net jobs, we have to look at the total number of jobs created, but there are some job losses in this though. It is estimated that to get 176,000 net new jobs, 1.5 million would actually need to be created. If we look at an average of $1,000 in EI exemption for each of these new hires, the plan would cost over $1.5 billion.
I would like to know how the Liberal proposal can be estimated at only $220 million because it could cost over five times more than what they have said. It does not make sense to me.