I will go on, Mr. Chairman.
I thank you all for coming here this morning to share your views with us.
My question is for Mr. Murphy. In terms of this debate that we are having presently, I find your approach to the issue of employment insurance somewhat surprising. You gave as an example the five additional weeks in the targeted regions. As we know, even with the prevailing unemployment rate, this is a deterrence to manpower mobility. When you said that you would deal with employment insurance, I expected you to talk about it as a program that allows workers to stay in their region and to build in each of these regions a pool of reliable employment.
A significant proportion of your members contribute to the employment insurance fund. As we know, almost $50 billion have been spent for other means than those of the fund. This is why I expected you to share your views on this subject. We are aware of the impact of this problem on each of our regions. Because of the constraints that have been imposed, some of the unemployed workers cannot benefit from employment insurance. In the regions, employment insurance contributes to the regional economy and to the well-being of businesses, in terms of allowing people to continue spending money and thus contributing to the economic well-being of the country.
I expected you to have a larger view of this issue and not such a narrow vision. In my view, this adds a negative rather than a positive contribution to this debate.