Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Shillington, for being here. I've enjoyed your presentation very much. I think we've heard some things that we all need to hear and that perhaps we haven't heard quite as clearly before this morning.
I have notes all over the place, so I'm going to be rattling papers here as I sort through them. There's one thing that has always confused me. With your background, maybe you can help me with this.
Different people come to this committee and give us different statistics on what is happening. Some people talk about 25% of women who can access EI. Then we hear the statistics that 80% or 81% who are eligible are able to collect and they can receive benefits. As well, somebody said something to me about a beneficiaries-to-unemployed ratio, and that this is how they're getting one of these sets of figures, while the other set of figures is coming from another method that Statistics Canada is using to collect data.
I'm told that the beneficiaries-to-unemployed ratio includes people who have never worked, so they have never paid into EI--or maybe they have worked, but not within the past year, or maybe they're people who quit their job without just cause, or they were self-employed and didn't pay into the program.
Those are all reasons, I think, why people are not collecting, but do we go with the 80% eligibility, that 81% who are eligible and collecting, or do we go with the 25%? There's such a huge disparity between the numbers. Anybody can use any number to prove their side of the story or further their side of the argument.