Employment insurance is an insurance program, so it's based on whoever pays into it being able to benefit from it. We understand the need for CRB being set up during the pandemic, because obviously there are not just individuals who may not have paid enough into the EI system—though it also reduced the qualifying amounts by quite a bit—but also a lot of self-employed, including our members, who have used the CERB and the CRB systems to help themselves through the pandemic. About 34%-35% of our members had no income coming in, and when you're self-employed, you don't have access to the EI system, as you know. It became an important lifeline for some of them as well.
On April 15th, 2021. See this statement in context.