I've been using the OECD in my courses since I started teaching 34 years ago.
I want to be very clear. I've never advocated saying that we shouldn't be spending on income support.
I just looked up a number very quickly, because I anticipated this question. This is from StatsCan 2019, pre-COVID, when three-fifths of total federal, provincial and municipal spending went to social protection, health care and education. Three-fifths is a huge amount of money. It was over $500 billion. That's pre-COVID. I'm not suggesting that we stop spending on income support or health care. We have a long history, as we all know, going back to the sixties, when we developed medicare, CPP and so forth. That's not the issue when you say, “Oh, you're against income support.” We've been doing it. The employment insurance program was passed in 1935. We all know that.
What I am arguing is that we have to tie the support, which has been in the Employment Insurance Act from the very beginning of our country, and with strong support across Canadian society.... It's that you have to be looking for a job, and you cannot turn down a job in your wheelhouse of experience or where you live.
That's all I'm really saying, because we have a million vacancies in Canada and we can't build a strong economy if businesses don't have enough workers to function, so I'm in agreement with the abstract principles of the OECD.