Yes. Thank you very much for the question.
Of course, the example you're using of Ottawa and Gatineau, where you're on a provincial boundary and it's very easy to cross, doesn't exist for most people in Winnipeg. Even in rural Manitoba, very few people would cross into other provinces.
My principal concern here is that.... As I say, I think everybody can understand why Quebec got a different level than other provinces, and perhaps it made sense in terms of a chronic level of unemployment over a period of time. So I don't think there should be any attacks on anybody for having that system, but I think the time for that has ended, and it is time for a uniform employment insurance qualification across the country.
In my previous role as a journalist here in Winnipeg, I had an open-line program that went right across Manitoba, so we were talking to Manitobans from all parts of the province at that point. A woman came forward who had appealed her unemployment insurance case, her disqualification from employment insurance. The issue in that case was that these rules are unfair to anybody who is in and out of the economy, and that particularly affects women.
I think that's another issue I would put before members of the committee, that having these various rates across the country and setting them fairly high generally makes it difficult for people who are in and out of the economy. That would be some of the people we represent at the Social Planning Council--women, immigrants and newcomers, and people with lower levels of education--who have less of an attachment to the workforce.
Drawing on my experience, I'm also a public education coordinator at Winnipeg Harvest, which is a food bank in town that supplies 300 local food banks around Winnipeg and across Manitoba, and we are definitely noticing a real problem with people who have exhausted their employment insurance benefits.