Thank you very much, Mr. Savage.
The social impact of EI in any industry that has a seasonal dependency can be measured in the way the children are dressed to go to school, whether they have money to go to the ski hill with the child of the government employee who makes $60,000 or $80,000 a year. That's how you have to look at the effects of seasonal employment, be it fisheries, forestry, tourism, or what have you.
These individuals are 48 to 52, as we said earlier. Our companies do not hire young people to go into the processing plants. I personally interview them and say, “Get into trade schools, get into this and that. If you're crazy enough to still want to, come back and see me after you get that.” But we don't get them anymore.
We've had thousands of workers.... This is what you need to understand when you're talking about the social impact of EI. There are thousands of us baby boomers. They've had to work in the steel plants, mines, fisheries, or whatever. They didn't all have the opportunity to go to university, so we still have them. Their education level is not there, but their backs and their hearts are. So when these women--and in the plants, most of them are women--come out of there after a 48- to 50-hour week, and sometimes more between August and October, that EI cheque is simply all that's driving them to work, those stamps. Because after October it gets cold, and they're single income in most cases. You're paid only $10.40. You do not get $18 or $20 an hour. It's not there.