Madam Speaker, I want to commend my leader on his excellent speech. I also want to thank him for choosing this topic for the first opposition day.
There is one aspect that has not been raised. The employment insurance fund currently has a $4-billion surplus. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates this measure will cost $1 billion, but in fact it will cost roughly half that at $500 million or $600 million. In other words, it would cost next to nothing to adopt this measure.
The Sorel-Tracy regional association of unemployed people testified at the Standing Committee on Finance. It said that if the EI fund were empty, it would simply take a contribution of 6¢ an hour. Let's not forget that employees and employers are the ones who pay for employment insurance, not the government.
Why not implement this system immediately?