As I mentioned, approximately 33% of claimants currently exhaust their 15 weeks of benefits. Among those, what the evaluation in 2019 demonstrated was that close to half—about 45%—never returned to work afterwards. For those who did return to work, the vast majority returned to work within the first 10 weeks after exhausting their 15 weeks of benefits.
Certainly, an extension to 26 weeks would help that group of claimants who are most likely to return to work shortly after exhausting their 15 weeks of benefits. Any extension beyond 26 weeks—for example, an extension to 50 or 52 weeks—would certainly provide support to additional claimants, but a lot of these claimants are individuals who unfortunately would not be likely to return to the labour market.