It’s now official. The court has unanimously ruled that Jean Chretien and his Cabinet, which included Paul Martin, were unlawfully seizing money from our pay cheques.

In a 7-0 judgment, the [Supreme] court ruled Thursday the former Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin collected EI contributions illegally in 2002, 2003 and 2005.

In those years, EI rates were set directly by cabinet without proper authorization from Parliament, violating the ancient constitutional principle of no taxation without representation.

The economic wizardry of Paul Martin has direct links all the way to the pockets of tax payers, whose monies were being grabbed illegally for the sake of boosting the Liberal government’s claims of deficit and debt reduction.

Critics have long maintained the strategy amounted to balancing the federal books on the backs of the unemployed.

[...]

Critics say the government then went on to set the premiums charged to workers and employers at higher rates than were necessary to fund the reduced benefits and new programs.

Insofar as the money the Liberal Cabinet seized was being diverted to general revenue, it may well have been some of the same money that circulated in brown paper envelops as it was handed out to federal Quebec Liberals.