Good afternoon, Minister. Welcome.
I would like to speak a bit about employment insurance.
As you know, for this bill, the government decided to choose 12 regions that will be eligible for extended employment insurance benefits. According to the definition provided, the unemployment rate in these regions must have risen by 2% over three months without showing significant signs of recovery. I will not list the 12 regions. However, we now know that southern interior British Columbia, southern Saskatchewan, and Edmonton are eligible. According to the data published, Thunder Bay, Yellowknife, Regina, and Prince Edward Island may be eligible shortly.
I have a question.
The bill currently lists 12 regions. Do you plan on adding, one at a time, each region that becomes eligible? Isn't this method, which involves changing the bill as Statistics Canada releases its statistics, relatively ineffective?