Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, to date, there has been too much political interference in the rules governing the employment insurance fund, and past Liberal governments in fact proved that they interfered too much in them.
At the time, the Liberal strategy was to keep premiums paid into the employment insurance fund too high in order to collect more money and thus provide the government with a hidden tax. It would be a good thing if our previous governments, Liberal and Conservative, finally admitted the truth, which is that the money they took from the employment insurance fund was a hidden tax and not premiums, since they took that money to use for other purposes.
The gasoline tax is a tax on gasoline. Income tax is a tax on income. The goods and services tax is a tax on goods and services. Premiums are premiums. It is therefore time to admit their wrongdoing in the past and finally stop interfering in something that is not the government’s business.