I find it kind of ironic. As parliamentarians, our job is to get all the information we need to make informed decisions. If we don't get the information, how can we improve those processes? This isn't like we're creating a new bureaucracy, staffing it with our Liberal friends and then publishing reports. As you said, some of the information is already published, but we're asking for additional information.
One of the members accused us of not doing our homework. We have an amendment here to our CPC-11. Subclause 38(5) amends section 12 of the act by adding proposed paragraph (2.31)(b), which refers to “the regional distribution of those workers”. Employment insurance discloses a lot of information by province, but some provinces are pretty big, like Ontario or Quebec. It doesn't include information on some big metropolitan areas like the GTA or Montreal. Some of that information could perhaps be useful for the government to make its decisions, assuming this government is one that makes decisions based on informed choices.
This is something that does provide more clarity. It does not create more bureaucracy. It does not add more costs, as some of the members on this committee seem to suggest. It just provides a little bit more clarity. It's information that the government should already have. They should have the social insurance numbers of those on EI. They should know where they live. They should have all this information. It's just a matter of tabling it in a format that is a bit more prescriptive, which is the regional distribution. Of course, some provinces are many regions. Something that we can support is to have that more precise information so that the government can make informed choices.
Choosing to be wilfully blind and saying, “No, it's all enough,” is not what we were elected to do as parliamentarians. As parliamentarians, regardless of party, we're here to hold the government to account and to make sure that the ever-growing army of bureaucrats—