I appreciate that.
My comment on it would be that of course the benefits, if you're going to have them, would cause the premiums to go up unless we froze the premium rate. If you were to increase benefits in the future.... We froze them for two years, which I think is a step in the right direction. The previous funds that were built up in the EI system went into general revenues, at a time when we were necessarily government. Good or bad, that's how it worked, so there is no fund existing presently that you can draw on. It would have to come from budgeting.
Another step we took with respect to EI was extending the job sharing program, loosening up the rules and increasing the number of weeks to which work sharing can extend up to 52 weeks. There is a comment here from the Forest Products Association of Canada, who say:
Extending the Work-sharing program will keep thousands of forest-sector employees gainfully employed until market conditions improve, help workers retain valuable skills, position companies to take full advantage of the eventual economic recovery and lessen the impact of layoffs and mill closures on communities.
Would you agree at least that this is a good step and should be increased, and do you find that this has been helpful in that sector, to some degree? I appreciate what Ms. Boucher, I think it was, said, that the $1 billion under the community adjustment fund has not been moving but eventually will.
Go ahead, Madame Boucher or Madame Gibeau.