Thank you for the question. There a lot to unpack there.
When we put CERB in place, it was at a time when we asked people to stay home and not go to work. We effectively shut down the economy in the interest of public health. We weren't able at that time to use the EI system to deliver as quickly as we wanted to or to as many people as we wanted to help.
Public servants have been working non-stop to get the system ready to transition unemployed workers back to EI. As I said, it's the best system we have, and it has robust integrity measures and work incentives. We made the eligibility criteria for EI more flexible. We set a uniform unemployment rate across the country that set standard eligibility criteria. We gave workers hours of credit and we set the minimum EI weekly amount at $500.
We also wanted to continue helping workers who still didn't qualify for EI, like gig workers or the self-employed. We recognized that many workers would continue having ongoing care responsibilities, and we wanted to support workers who were sick or had to self-isolate because of COVID. We wanted a longer runway for Canadians to provide certainty for the next year in terms of the benefits they could access. Canadians know that these benefits are available to them should there be outbreaks or waves like the one we're experiencing now.
We also wanted to ensure equity between EI and the new recovery benefit. For example, the minimum number of EI weeks is the maximum number of the CERB weeks. The minimum EI weekly benefit is the amount of the CERB, and we wanted to address concerns raised over disincentivizing work. Basically we wanted to send the clear message that there's an expectation to work if you're able to and it's available, but that if you're not or if you don't have a job, we want to make sure that we have your backs as well.