It would, absolutely. This is why this has been a long-standing recommendation of CFIB. The time to do it would have been when EI rates were starting to drop. You would have accelerated the size of the reduction for businesses or small businesses and then allowed the employee rate to stay constant.
Given that the window has closed, another way to do it would be to bring back something like the small business job credit, which allowed the small employer to have a reduced EI rate on the first x amount of payroll. I think in the previous rounds it was $600,000.
I agree with you. Right now, with rate hikes going on, implementing it may need to be phased in over time or through a different pathway whereby it is, in fact, subsidized by general government revenue. At the moment, finding ways to reduce the EI burden on small employers is our priority.