Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank my colleague for his presentation and for coming forward with this bill. Having had the opportunity to work with him and Monsieur Lessard on a past study, I know that some good recommendations were put forward through that study. Some good provisions and good measures were taken. I know that the elimination of the divisor rule and the “black hole” provision were important to workers. We made some strides in those areas anyway. I certainly respect my colleague's commitment to this issue.
It speaks to a larger issue. It's not just about EI, but about rural communities and sustaining a critical core of people, a critical mass of people in these rural communities where we harvest the fish and harvest timber for our mills. There has to be a way that we're able to keep these people in the communities they want to be in, in those industries that are seasonal in nature.
As Mr. Godin has mentioned, they're not seasonal workers, they're workers who are employed in seasonal industries. Many work in a number of those industries. They'll go from the fishery to forestry, or they'll move into tourism for a period of time.
In speaking with some groups and individuals on this particular thing.... There's a caution. I want to ask if Monsieur Godin has affixed a cost to the program in regard to dropping the number of required hours. The concern I've heard from some interventions that were directed to my office was that if we open it up, if we don't specify the areas of higher unemployment, if it becomes too costly and if it's right across the board, then overall the number of hours will continue to creep up. There would be no preferred requirement for the areas of higher unemployment. They see that down the road it may be a concern, and uniformly the required number of hours will be increased to the disadvantage of those areas that have the higher levels of unemployment.
I'd like your views on the costing and whether you think this is a concern.