Thank you for your question; it's a broad one.
Actually, as regards missed opportunities, I'll expand on the answer I gave Mr. Garon earlier.
The bill is an imperfect response to the proposed changes to the board of appeal which were a pressing concern for labour associations and representatives. However, we actually could have waited for that response to be given in a much broader and more comprehensive context.
In our view, you can't have one reform without the other. When ineligibility and disqualification cases arise, they'll necessarily result in challenges that will have to be heard by the employment insurance boards of appeal or by the Social Security Tribunal.
If those appeal bodies aren't operating optimally or at a level appropriate to the workers' situations, we'll be constantly running around in circles. This is addressed in the joint demands of the union federations and other labour representation organizations. A lot of work would have to be done on eligibility issues, if only on the method for recording the number of insurable hours, eligibility criteria and so on.
During the pandemic, with the Canada emergency response benefit, the CERB, and the changes made to the employment insurance program during that time, which, if my memory serves me, will remain in force until September 24, the current criterion is 420 hours. We think that threshold should be retained rather than raised.
To prevent certain individuals from falling victim to the system's deficiencies or from being unable to qualify because they work on a part-time basis or have irregular work schedules, we suggest that a new criterion be used based on the number of weeks of work that, in one way or another, will result in the same contribution rate, the same amounts of money contributed by workers. This would harm neither the Employment Insurance Commission of Canada nor the Treasury Board. There would be ways to provide better eligibility guarantees for workers.
Furthermore, when overpayments are made, we would like each recovery amount not to exceed the amount of one week's overpayment to avoid overpenalizing workers, for whom these are considerable amounts, whereas they're negligible for the commission.
Those are the main suggestions that immediately come to mind.