Finance committee  Sure thing. One of the things we've advocated for in the past is to standardize the minimum hours required to access EI as well as universally decrease the number of hours required, in part to address the fact that temporary employment has become a more permanent way of life for

Finance committee  Specifically, in the first year of its operation in 2015, it's likely 200 jobs will be created, which would be a cost of $1.4 million per job created in the first year of operation. It would be lower in the second year of operation as the multipliers increase slightly.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  That's right.

Finance committee  The incentive is low. For every $100 spent on an employee, you would get 39¢ back for increases, although in fairness no employer has to apply for this. They just get the cheque in the mail.

Finance committee  I wouldn't expect that it would tip the balance very much, which is why the number of jobs created for the amount of money spent is very low.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I assume that the numbers that Mr. Askari has received from Finance Canada are the accurate ones of businesses that are around the cap. Included is a strong disincentive to go over the cap if you were near the cap. If you're far enough away from the c

Finance committee  Well, it depends on how those premiums are spent, I suppose. If that money is put into a [Technical difficulty--Editor] there's obviously going to be a negative impact on the economy of higher-than-necessary EI—

Finance committee  Well, that's potentially another issue. However, what I would encourage is for members to examine the fact that most Canadians who are unemployed cannot access the EI system. Instead of decreasing premiums, what we should be doing is increasing coverage rates on unemployed Canad

Finance committee  Sure. Thank you very much for the question. The argument to be made for support for unemployed people as opposed to support for decreases in EI premium changes comes from the economic multiplier numbers published by Finance Canada in the 2009 budget. Those Finance Canada numbers

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the members for the invitation to speak before the finance committee today. I would like to confine my remarks to the small business job credit as proposed in the omnibus bill under discussion. I'm concerned that the credit is not optimally stru

Finance committee  Thank you very much for your question. In terms of Canadian innovation and some of the productivity problems that we're seeing going forward, one of the things that I think we need to remember is that in some sense, slow productivity is offset by a significant increase in the la

Finance committee  I think you're absolutely right, in that the Canadian government's austerity measures were not nearly as severe as other governments'—particularly European governments'—austerity measures. Those have been a complete disaster. Austerity measures in southern Europe, for instance, h

Finance committee  That's right. Austerity generally reduces the rate of growth of public expenditures over time.