Madam Speaker, that is a fairly complicated question, given the amount of time I have to answer. However, I will touch on a couple of points.
The discussion around self-employed workers has been going on at various committees for a number of years. For example, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women started looking at self-employed workers and the potential for maternity benefits.
Sometimes it seems that what happens in this House is that when in doubt, conduct a study, then when we do not want to make a decision, have another study and then study the study. This discussion has been going on for a significant number of years.
I would argue that we do have the resources to frame how people would get paid employment insurance if they were self-employed. The Canada Revenue Agency has extensive experience in determining what employment is insurable in the current context of a worker-employer relationship. Some of that criteria could be transferred to self-employed workers,
There could be other mechanisms. For example, there is significant labour market information that can determine where there are downturns in particular sectors. There are mechanisms that could be used to determine whether self-employed workers were laying themselves off when there could be work available.
There is an adjudication process within employment insurance that takes a look at whether people have voluntarily quit their jobs. That could also be employed for self-employed workers.