EI stuff is a complex issue. I think Mr. Vis has raised an important issue around the antiquity of the computer system, which apparently still is coded in COBOL. It's old. Trust me, it's held together by spit and glue sometimes.
I think taking a look at its flexibility.... One reason we can't do day-by-day disbursements is that the computer system just can't handle it without collapse. It's tying our hands as we move towards EI reform. I think taking a look at what the cost of that change is and how we avoid a Phoenix calamity and the mess.... Somebody has to start talking about that. This committee is well positioned to do that. It limits our capacity to deal with seasonal industry, the workers who are impacted and the regions of the country that depend on EI to tide people over through the surges of income and the loss of work due to climate.
I would add that I think MP Gazan is also challenging us to broaden our understanding of how we ensure people's earnings when work has clearly changed radically. The gaps that people experience are now caverns that they fall through. I don't think we should limit our imagination on solving EI, but I think that we need to fix EI in a way that it can be reformed to do more than simply address the precarious work of the gig economy, which is the urban equivalent of the seasonal employment black hole, as it's sometimes referred to.
It'll depend on the witnesses we call. I think that Madame Chabot's motion is broad enough to allow for MP Vis's line of inquiry, as well as MP Gazan's. I think there are other issues we're going to bring to the table that escaped the previous study on this, which was done just four years ago in this very same committee.