I'd actually like to echo what you were saying, Madam McLeod, about depressions begetting depressions. It is important not to overstate things, in a doom and gloom way, because it will beget a bad psychology. That's why the Great Depression was called the Great Depression. It was psychology actually trumping economic fundamentals in a prolonged way and feeding on itself. We may face exactly the same thing. But the truth is that without a government that restores confidence and says this can be done and we will create jobs, there's nothing on which to anchor.
Everything else in the private sector is about hunkering down. We are not talking about a cyclical downturn now. We're talking about a structural de-leveraging. Banks are over-leveraged. Businesses are over-leveraged. Households are over-leveraged. People are looking at what's going on and saying that if they lose their jobs, the whole house of cards will fall down, and people are pulling back. When you get all of the sectors of the private sector contracting, including exports, then there is nothing to fill the breach, other than someone who can say with confidence this is how we're going to actually use this moment to create the platform for the next phase of growth.
It is quintessentially a government's job. I understand how difficult that is. We've had 30 years of hearing that governments are the problem and markets are the solution. You don't turn a mindset like that around in a matter of weeks. But governments are indeed not the problem. Governments are the solution at this moment to be able to create the long-term opportunities that you're talking about.
Given the fact that we are off topic and we need to talk about EI, with the very small part about the self-employed coming into maternity benefits, anything that expands the ability of people to raise their kids and not worry about where the food is going to come from is helpful. You have an opt-in plan that is terrific for people who can afford to opt in.
But may I just say this, as a feminist and as an economist? Maternity and parental benefits should not be part of the social insurance program for the jobless. You want to support people who are raising their kids in the few months after the adoption or the birth of a child. Create a program that does that, which includes everyone who has a child and not only those who are eligible for EI. Surely we want people to be able to stay at home in the first few months of that new child joining the family. I welcome anything that improves support for young families, but it's going to help those who can most afford it. People who are very poor won't be able to opt in and they won't get much out of the system. Let's actually redesign this to help young families in a meaningful way.
Quite apart from that, I agree that you need to look at the long-term options in jobs and not EI. But the purpose of this discussion is the question of what we can do about EI. The answer is to make it easier to get into it.