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 were used to estimate the stimulus impact of the measures in 2009-10.
If you compare the impact of spending $1, for instance, on support for low-income individuals versus spending $1 on EI premium changes—or reduction in EI premiums—you'll find that, depending on whether it's year one or year three, or how far out you go, in all cases the impact on spending that dollar on low-income Canadians is much greater than spending it on EI premium decreases. The ratio is about three to four times, depending on which timeframe you're looking at. That's the basis of those comments.
If members are interested in an EI premium change per se, and are not interested necessarily in expanding benefits for unemployed Canadians, the argument that I would make is that the program could be much better designed if instead of providing the incentive to all businesses, it only provided the incentive to businesses that increased their EI contributions from last year. That is to say, they expanded the amount that they paid into EI, which, by implication, means they're expanding their payroll either by hiring people or paying their employees more.