There are two key criticisms that we make about EI. I think EI is an incredibly important part of our social security system and certainly is one of the social programs that is most in need of reform. We think the regionalization aspect of EI is a bad idea. It leads to the kinds of inequities that we're seeing now in various parts of the country. What's needed is to increase the earnings-related ratio for EI so that it is a more generous program. It could be developed over the years so that it doesn't have these regional aspects to it, which we think are quite pernicious, like it or not.
The other problem you just touched on is the development of a new labour market, with marginal work and the whole syndrome of problems that people have adjoining to the labour force. We decided that, on this one, you can't fix it with EI as a social insurance. We're always going to have these kinds of inequities that we see, that we talk about. We suggested a kind of experiment to look at a new program, an income-tested program, that would be geared to people who just can't make it in the usual labour market. There has to be another way of helping those people. They're certainly never going to meet the requirements of the social insurance-based program.
So it's those kinds of things. We're trying to look at it from a broader point of view. The unfairness in the regionalization thing I think is palpable, and some of it has to be fixed.