First of all, I would like to provide some context for my response. When we look at income security for working-age Canadians, 18 to 65, we're spending about $60 billion overall in every sort of program. Most of our income security goes to people over 65 and to children.
I'm going to quote one figure. That figure is 12%. The other side of that, 88% of all income security, goes to people after they have worked, through the EI program. It pays you after you have worked. The CPP program pays you after you have worked. What about people who are either not working, or working in the home, or working in voluntary situations? They are part of that 12% of income that goes to people who get income security either while they are working—through the Canada workers benefit or through the EI working while on claim program—or through social assistance.
I think one of the things we have to do is start reorienting our income security system in ways that provide income security to people either while they are working, or while they are doing other things, like raising families and volunteering, when they are not in the labour force.
I think it's a laudable suggestion that we have new opportunities to do that. If you look at our income security—I try to look at it as would an intelligent Martian coming to look at it from high up—it's so oriented to the after-work experience. We need to be thinking of it while people are in their working age but unable to work and doing other things, like volunteering or raising families.