Thank you for raising that.
I did try to acquaint myself a little more with the mobility issue, given the previous deliberations of your committee and the interest in it.
As I alluded, there are a number of factors that enter into an individual's decision to relocate. It's not at all obvious that employment insurance is a major factor one way or the other. Clearly, Canadians are making decisions based on their perceptions of economic opportunities, the distance, the costs involved, and their age is clearly a major factor. If you're younger and if you're better educated, you're more likely to move than if you're older and if you are less well educated. Language is a barrier as well.
I have three studies. I will not take your time with them now, but we will make summaries thereof available to the committee. They all suggest that while EI is likely a factor in mobility, it is far from a determining factor.
With respect to a mobility feature, the department has in the past made available a modest mobility incentive among the toolkit of employment assistance programs that we offered. It is now over. We do have an evaluation, and the evaluation does not suggest it was a very effective incentive. First, the take-up was not that great, as I recall, and some of those who took advantage of it would have moved anyway and this was a fairly modest thing at the margin.
One should recall, of course, that the income tax system itself provides support against moving costs for relocation for employment purposes.