Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon to my colleagues.
Thank you to Mr. Long—I like that last name—for your presentation to us this afternoon.
I'll state the obvious. EI benefits are there to catch people who lose work through no fault of their own. They're there to support Canadians, and I think all of us have seen first-hand and are so thankful for the EI program. Millions of Canadians needed that program through this pandemic. I wonder where we would be as a country without that program.
Mr. Long, I do have some questions for you. In 2017-18 EI sickness benefits provided $1.7 billion in support to 412,000 claimants. The average duration of sickness benefits was 10 weeks. However, 36% of claimants exhausted EI benefits before they were able to return to work. One of the government's commitments is to increase EI sickness benefits from 15 to 26 weeks.
Can you please explain for the committee as to how many people would benefit as a result of expanding the duration of this benefit?