Mr. Chair, this is a hugely important issue. I would say there's a principle to be put into effect first, and then I can talk about some of the specifics. The principle is that EI, employment insurance, should be just that. It should be an insurance system and not what it has become, which is an insurance system plus. The plus is a whole series of social policy objectives that are being met through increases in the premiums paid by both employers and workers in the country. We now have a situation where about half the premiums that are paid don't go for insurance purposes. We've taken a program that was an insurance system and turned it into something far different.
So the first reform is to acknowledge that we've got to get the system back to what it was intended to do, which is to provide insurance for people who are paying premiums and who find themselves out of work. That's my starting point.
The disincentives we have built into the system today, as a result of.... We saw another example of it this week with the so-called seasonal gappers program, the pilot trial that's coming to conclusion later this year. There are all kinds of examples of where we have to tighten up the program. That was done in 1996 by the government at the time, and our organization certainly supported the changes that were made. That changed again in 2002.
I think from the standpoint of looking at EI as an opportunity to do the job it's supposed to do in terms of providing insurance for people--workers and employers are paying those premiums--we're now at a stage where, with half of the benefits now going for non-insurance purposes, it's time to question the fact that employers--my members and other members, other businesses in Canada--are paying 1.4 times the premium that workers pay today. The rationale for that used to be a case of “Well, you decide when people are going to be unemployed and you make that decision as a company”. Today you have half the benefits going for other purposes that corporations have no control over, so why do we still have a 1.4 premium? That's a serious question.
The other one is that there is a system built into EI for individuals. If you overcontribute because you changed jobs and your second employer starts deducting EI premiums, you get that back through the tax system every year. That's not true for corporations. We think there's a very big bill left on the table where corporations are overpaying on EI. That should be addressed as well.
Those are a few specific comments.