Mr. Speaker, to answer the member's first point about lower unemployment, the Minister of Finance in budget plan 1999 on page 64 projects that employment insurance benefit payments will rise from $11.8 billion to $13.8 billion by 2000-01, an extra $2 billion for employment insurance payments.
Millions of people were excited about the increase in benefit payments.
( z1 excite :ARG0 ( z2 increase :ARG1 ( z3 pay :ARG1 ( z4 benefit ) ) ) :ARG1 ( z5 person :quant ( z6 multiple :op 1000000 ) ) )