Status of Women committee  One of the difficulties is that when you take a look at some of the traditional training—apprenticeship, for example—96% of apprenticeship dollars go to men. Again, there's a whole other discussion about women in the trades. We keep bumping back into the question of access, whether it's 350 hours or 360 hours, because you can't get the training if you don't get the access.

Status of Women committee  Having worked for a long time in a variety of areas, I'd say it's a question of what is voluntary. I may voluntarily work part-time if I can't find child care. That's my choice: I choose to work part-time because I don't have the other options. In fact, the studies we've done and that have been done by other independent agencies show quite clearly that if the supports are there for women of all ages to work full-time, they will choose that option; I think it's about 66% of women who will do that.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to thank you on behalf of the more than three million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, workers who work in every industry from coast to coast to coast. I want to say as well that this is a very important issue. Employment insurance is critically important, and especially critically important to women.

Health committee  You can start with implementing 99% of what was in the Romanow commission. You could bring in a lot of those things: MRIs, the other--

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  If I can begin, one of the things we would recommend to the committee is that if you want to look at the question of controlling costs and providing needed services to people, you really have to get into the national pharmaceutical strategy. That has to be there. Earlier I believe Mr.

Health committee  The temporary foreign worker program is not working, for those workers who are being brought in. It is not immigration; it's exploitation. It's not working for the system either. As well, we have a number of workers who have immigrated to Canada who cannot get access to the kinds of training they need.

Health committee  Can I just add something there? Over a long number of years, the Canadian Labour Congress has proposed a system of training insurance under EI. We were trying to get some pilots going across the country to address specifically the question of aboriginal workers who may be in the health system, who may be in support work, and who want to train for some other types of jobs, and also the question of new Canadians, immigrants, and so on.

Health committee  We'll send you our document—

Health committee  Thank you very much. I'll try to stay within the five minutes. I know you'll keep me to that, but don't start the clock yet. It's started. Okay. On behalf of the three million members of the Canadian Labour Congress and their families, I want to thank the committee members for this opportunity to appear today.

Human Resources committee  Okay. We need to see the bill, obviously, that's going to create this crown corporation, but we have some of those same concerns. We don't want to be in a position where questions can no longer be raised about EI because the government can say, “Oh well, it's over there that it's dealt with; go talk to the president of the corporation.”

Human Resources committee  The question, as I understand it, is what do we do about...? Well, I mean....

Human Resources committee  What's our recommendation? Our recommendations are these. First of all, you have to include access. We have to extend the duration of benefits and the level of benefits. We have to get back to a system that works for the unemployed during their times of unemployment, whether it's regular benefits or special benefits.

Human Resources committee  What we know is that women are taking time out to look after their children, or sometimes it's also taking time out to care for other dependent people in their family, which means they're out of the workplace. And if they've been out for a certain period of time, what you end up with is their having a higher entrance requirement again.

Human Resources committee  Can I remind people, too, that there is a really good study by Monica Townson and Kevin Hayes, which was done for Status of Women Canada, about the question of women and EI. It's an excellent study, and it gives you a lot of the background.