Certainly.
I mentioned briefly the career transition assistance initiative in my opening remarks because that's a fairly significant measure that was introduced in the action plan targeted at the same population that we're dealing with in this legislation. The difference is that the extended benefit was for a longer period of time, but targeted at those people who make the significant decision of undertaking long-term training for up to two years. So if an individual wanted to make a fairly fundamental change in their occupation or career, they would work in conjunction with their provincially delivered training providers, and the federal employment insurance program would provide income support for up to two years.
There's also a related measure. At present there's a period of time, if you're in receipt of severance, to wait before benefits can start. If that individual decides to invest part of their severance package in training, they can claim EI and receive benefits much earlier than before.
Those are two measures that were done as part of the career transition assistance for the economic action plan and are being unfolded.
The other measure specifically targeted to older workers—this isn't specific to EI eligibility—is the targeted initiative for older workers, focused on smaller communities, less than 250,000 population, that are facing particular challenges. This is supporting fairly innovative projects across the country to deliver group-based projects for groups of older workers who are facing similar challenges. There are projects unfolding across the country. There were previously a limited number of provinces participating in the initiative. We've now signed new agreements with Manitoba, Nunavut, and Ontario, so now all jurisdictions except Alberta are participating in the targeted initiative for older workers that saw some enhanced investments in the economic action plan.