Again, I have a couple of comments.
Earlier someone mentioned the urban myth. My experience is that apprentices who are having issues with EI are most likely to connect with me in my province, or with their parliamentary representative whether it is provincial or federal. Based on the nature of our roles, we tend to hear the worst cases.
As Jeff said, there are a lot of apprentices who go to school, get their EI payment on time, get their schooling, and finish, but there are certainly some, and maybe the number is 16% or so, who are missing out.
In terms of what to do, I mentioned the two-week waiting period. That's imposed on their first trip to school, but not on their subsequent trips to school. Maybe that could be waived for their first trip.
The 28 days is also an issue. If it were, for example, 14 days instead of 28 days, that would speed up the system.
The other piece of that is training for both apprentices and employers. A lot of the time when there is a hiccup in the system it's either because the apprentice has not filed their information the right way, or the employer has not filed their information, or in some cases the employer has not even provided the information, for example, the record of employment.
I suggest to look at the two weeks, the 28 days, and some way of educating apprentices and employers about their role and how to get through the system as efficiently as possible.