Mr. Speaker, as I said before to my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, a bit of history does not hurt this topic. Prior to when the Liberals came in in 1993, the Auditor General had identified that the EI system had been bankrupt under Brian Mulroney and the previous Conservative government. The unemployment rate was 12.5%, and inflation was in double digits. Therefore, Paul Martin had frozen the rates at $3.02, as they were on their way to $3.20, and he brought them down 12 successive times over the course of the Liberal government. I am not saying that is the entire answer, but I do not think we can divorce the fact that it was an incentive to business to further invest in employees because there was not that heavy tax burden of EI premiums. Therefore, the unemployment rate went from 12.5% down to 6.5%.
Is it where it should be now? I agree with my colleague that the focus now should not be on lowering rates but on increasing access.