Maybe I can respond to that and then obviously I want to think about it.
The bill is not as complicated as most would make it. We have heard testimony today that said the rate is set, having regard to a number of factors, and they're policy factors. One of those is ease of administration, that it's easy to understand, and equal to the same amount that's being charged to employees now. That's not complicated. The uptake rate will determine how many benefits are paid out. There are a number of factors, but it will not be equal. There will be some deficits, and those have been indicated by Mr. Beauséjour. They've been set out to exactly what they are.
That doesn't change what we understood about the bill. You can have any number of accountants look at it, you can have any amount of number crunching, but those are policy kinds of considerations. The bill is what the bill is. The bill was put forward here. We all read the bill. We all knew how it worked. If we're going to start saying at this hour that we're going to make material changes to it, that has nothing to do with the design of the bill.
It's meant to work this way. It's meant to say that if you collect from employees what you're collecting from other employees and you have a lot of people taking maternity and paternity benefits, and you have sickness and compassionate benefits, and they are a little more than the premium, that will have to come from the EI account. That's the way EI works, and it's cost-subsidized in many other areas, if you look at the premiums today. Those who receive benefits don't exactly pay in equal to their benefits. That's the way it's designed to work. Nothing will change about that.
For me to go back and say, let's make it actuarially sound to ensure the premiums will be equal to the benefits--that won't happen, because that's not the way the bill is designed. We all knew that, and we're now playing games--some of us. I'm saying we'll have to deal with that. We knew what we were talking about last week and nothing has changed.