Thank you, Chair. I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Deltell, so if have six minutes, at three minutes in, could you give it to Mr. Deltell?
Thank you so much to all the witnesses for being here.
To Mr. Kelly, with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, in a past life I was an entrepreneur myself. There is a risk to running a business and hopefully there's a profit at the end of each year. The first three years are difficult and I think the first two years of business I did not make money. I lost money. The third year I made money and from then on. The more money I was making in gross, the more I was able to hire staff and expand. It's always a risk to create a business, and not all businesses are successful. My hat's off to those who are growing businesses and taking those risks because you help create jobs in the Canadian economy. Thank you for representing them.
For EI, I remembered that for every dollar I would deduct from an employee's gross pay to pay for EI, I would have to pay $1.40. When I would give an employee an increase, there would be a proportionate increase that I'd have to pay for EI, and if it was a bad year—there were some in the eighties—I went without a paycheque because my staff always got paid first. That's what it's like to be in business at times.
When we talk about increases to EI, or reducing the level of qualifying for receiving EI—I think the suggestion was 360 hours, which is 45 days of work—what's the direct impact to an employer?
Also, how important is growing government debt to the people you represent?