Briefly, we see this as a valuable way to incent employers to continue to grow their employee base. Payroll taxes are a significant barrier to employers at the small business level, to hiring. They're essentially revenue neutral. You have to pay them whether you make any money or not that year. If we want to encourage employers to hire youth, in particular, one way to do that might be to offset the EI payments they're making during the time when they're hiring and training a new person and they themselves are not working in their own business.
On April 2nd, 2014. See this statement in context.