You're proposing that we lower the threshold for employment insurance benefits. I have personal experience with people who would rather be on employment insurance than go to work. If we are lowering the threshold for benefits and extending the benefit periods, how do we protect the employment insurance system from abuse?

4:55 p.m.

Co-Coordinator, Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi

Michaël Bizzarro

Thank you for the question, which often comes up in conversations about benefits for the unemployed.

I would just like to remind you that, according to the annual report by the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, the CEIC, approximately 1% of claimants defraud employment insurance.

We are trying to make progress so that more unemployed people can access benefits, but EI discriminates against many of these people. In our opinion, the 1% of unemployed workers who defraud employment insurance is a very small number.

We're not interested in fighting potential fraudsters; we're interested in making things better for other unemployed people.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB

When that study was done and it refers to fraud, my assumption would be that a fraud would be somebody who is collecting benefits, but maybe earning cash on the side.

Can you confirm that the fraud is the same as somebody who is just not trying very hard to get a job? I don't know if that would be fraudulent.

5 p.m.

Co-Coordinator, Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi

Michaël Bizzarro

The EI eligibility rules are the same for all unemployed workers in Canada. They are required to meet, seek work and report their income every two weeks. The CEIC makes the rules, and the rules work. There is a stereotype about some workers trying to take advantage of the system, but the CEIC has rules to manage benefits, and it works very well that way.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Skuterud.

What lessons can we learn from our past, or from other OECD countries, that would help us tackle the rise in youth unemployment here in Canada?

5 p.m.

Professor, Department of Economics, University of Waterloo, As an Individual

Mikal Skuterud

Mr. Hussan and I have both sort of pointed to the same factor. Coming out of the pandemic, there was a very big increase in price inflation. Prices were increasing a lot faster than labour costs. That gives companies margins. When the prices you can sell things at are rising faster than what you have to pay your workers, there are profit margins. That increases labour demand. Now the incentive is to produce a whole lot more and to hire more workers, these low-skilled workers.

There was this huge increase in labour demand. Then there was a lot of hyperbolic talk about a labour shortage crisis, much of it driven by a business lobby. The government responded to that by doing things like removing any restrictions on the number of hours that international students work, which we've seen in the data. I had a student that worked on this with a labour force survey. It was clearly evident that there was an increase in the amount of labour market activity off campus by international students.

All of that sort of blew up, and now we're coming back to another point, because the Bank of Canada has now put the breaks on inflation. We're in a bit of a cycle. Every time we move into—

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey

Mr. Skuterud, you can follow up at a later time.

Thank you, Mr. Reynolds. We went over a bit.

Ms. Fancy, you have five minutes or less.