Mr. Chair, we are very clear about this matter. We spoke about this in our presentation. Self-employment is a reality of our economy stemming from globalization and job specialization. This is a growing reality today. Data from the 2009 labour force survey indicated that there were 2.8 million self-employed workers as of October 2009, and that this group considered itself—and this is important—to be entrepreneurs. They are the beginnings of the company, the SME and perhaps the major corporation of the future. This status of self-employed worker is, in many cases, transitory.
But I would like to caution you. We have observed that older self-employed workers, aged 45 to 64, are very experienced. They want to use this as a bridge to retirement and continue helping companies and providing services in their area of specialty. The informatics sector is watching today's debate and tomorrow the same principles will apply to building appraisers who are self-employed workers. It is the same thing.