Every person I've talked to about EI or about apprenticeship—every person, every level—everyone's always had a problem, always. Yesterday I was at Algonquin College, and this is one of the things all the teachers said to me. They said to make sure I bring this up, because it pisses them off all the time.
If you have a whole bunch of students, they're there, they stop working, they're in school, they're excited for school—but then they're broke. You're dealing with 40 students who are broke and stressed. How are you going to teach them?
This to me has always been the base-level question in my head: why is it unemployment? You're employed. Why is it linked to EI? When you leave work and you go to your apprenticeship, I know there have to be lots and lots of reasons that it falls into the realm of employment insurance. You're still employed.
Who cares if it was an incentive? Give the money to the schools to disburse and send in a request to give out the paycheques. I don't care how the money gets there, but get the guys their money so they can go to school and get back to work and start making more money.