My understanding--and actually I'm going to Newfoundland in a couple of weeks--is that Newfoundland is looking at some skill shortages now just because rates of mobility out of skilled work have been so high.
If you go too far the other way, what you run into--and I'll send you the reference, a recent research study that was done for Human Resources and Social Development Canada--is the fact that study pointed to, that if all you're giving a worker as a benefit is 55% of maximum insurable earnings of $38,000 or $39,000 a year, basically it's a poverty-line benefit. There is a question certainly for higher skilled workers, but really, do you run a danger of bludgeoning somebody into taking the first available job rather than taking the time to look around for better employment, to consider a move geographically?
I would suggest that we are in that situation now where--and I agree with colleagues down the table--at a time when presumably we want skill shortages in some parts of the country to be filled, in part, through labour mobility, how might we use the unemployment insurance program as a means of facilitating that movement? Really, the traditional approach has been all sticks and no carrots, if I could put it that way. We used to have mobility assistance directly under the unemployment insurance program. We used to have programs that took unemployed workers out so they could have a period of job search in another part of the country. It's worth revisiting.