Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  And better, according to the statistics that have been presented here. In fact, the United States, which we don't often compare ourselves to, has been so supportive.

Human Resources committee  If your question is, Monsieur Godin, whether we would like to see the access rate lower for pregnancy leave, we would welcome all of those kinds of improvements. But what we've said consistently is that we think the first major step is to get everybody to the 360 hours. Let's be really clear: people don't go on EI because they think it's going to be a party.

Human Resources committee  I know. I understand that, but—

Human Resources committee  Absolutely.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely, and you have to look at who contributed, by the way, to the surplus that was there. When the government proposed going to every hour being insurable, you'll recall that prior to that you had to work 15 hours a week in order for UI to paid. We said that every hour should be insurable and that then people who are less than full-time should be able to get some kind of benefit if they face long or short periods of unemployment.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. We say that at the end in terms of the... I think I'm understanding you. We're not saying that in terms of the duration issue we want to hold things up. What we're saying is to get these other two pieces done in terms of the access and the benefit level, and then come back with more, because the unemployed are being crushed out there.

Human Resources committee  No. The reality is that it doesn't matter what social program we've looked at or what workplace or what parliament or legislature or business, there will be always a small proportion of people--very small--who will stretch the rules, if we can put--

Human Resources committee  Well, but the vast majority of people do not. I was a social worker for 17 years in Saskatchewan. People don't want to be on welfare. They don't want to be on UI. They end up being on it because of life circumstances that they haven't had control over. I mean, take a look at it.

Human Resources committee  Yes. We've said all along that we need to have reform. There used to be a process through which we got together once a year with people from the Unemployment Insurance Commission and with the Chief Actuary to talk about what the rates should be--not that we had a lot of influence, because the actuary was directed and was told, “This is what you need to do”.

Human Resources committee  We believe that the 360 hours should apply for all benefits. Is that your question? We believe that the 360 applies for all benefits, and it shouldn't matter where you live or what you do. It should be 360 hours—real simple. It makes it easy.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely not. The EI system is in desperate need of reform. It's in desperate need of modernization. It excludes thousands of workers because, as we've put in our presentation, they don't have the right number of hours. They may have worked for years, but the system isn't working for them when they're unemployed.

Human Resources committee  May I add something on some of the other points you raised? We would welcome a better EI program for the unemployed. We've been saying for years that it needs to be modernized. There is the whole question of women in the workplace and less than regular employment and so on. We would welcome all of that.

Human Resources committee  Yes, absolutely. Let's just go back to before we were dealing with the recession. You'll recall what happened to people in Toronto during the SARS crisis, the people who worked in hotels as part-time workers--again, predominantly women--who couldn't get access to EI, even though they had paid in for years, because they didn't have enough hours.

Human Resources committee  Thanks. I'll be making the initial presentation and then Sylvain and I will be sharing the questions. First of all, I do want to thank the committee for being accommodating of our schedules. Sylvain has a son who is anxious that he be picked up by his father after school, so we did say to the committee that we could be here but that at least Sylvain has to be gone by 4:30.