I appreciate your opening commentary. I think we need to recognize that we've made investments. The economy has recovered from where it was in 2015, early 2016, but there are still significant challenges, both to our economy and to the global environment, which we always need to be paying attention to. Being fiscally responsible to be prepared for those challenges is important.
When you think about the Canada training benefit, really, it's about how individuals can be prepared for challenges that they are likely to face during the course of their careers. We are working to think about ways we can ensure that Canadians are prepared for a fast-moving economy. In recognizing that most training dollars in Canada have gone through the employment insurance system, we were looking at ways we could help people while they're at work to improve and upgrade their skills.
The Canada training benefit was put in place with that objective in mind. It's really three things together. It's allowing people to take up to four weeks off from work every four years. It's enabling them to have a tax credit—$250 a year, so $1,000 every four years—so that they could put that money towards a training course. Finally, it's an employment insurance payment so they could continue to pay the rent and groceries while they're off.
The idea is that people therefore can upgrade their skills in their current job or prepare themselves for their next job. We're going to need to keep thinking about this so that we can have the kind of fast-paced and exciting opportunities for Canadians that this economy produces, without the real risk people see that they won't be prepared for that. There will be things we'll need to continue to consider, but I think the Canada training benefit will be an important foundational measure that can enable people, over time, to keep their skills upgraded to what they need.