If you look at this chart with the measure that I could most easily get access to without spending more than $100, you see this decline. It's the same measurement when it was 80% or 90%, so there was a time, even with that measure, when the vast majority of unemployed were getting EI. The major drop is the “voluntary quit” rule. It wasn't the case before 1993 that people who quit their jobs got EI on the same basis. They didn't. They had a penalty on their waiting time, so it's not as if they weren't covered. To my mind it's as if you have car insurance, and if you are at fault right now what happens is normally you pay the deductible. That's your penalty for being at fault. If we wanted to run car insurance the way we run EI--you are not covered--you would not be insured if you were at fault. You would get no coverage whatsoever, and half the people involved in car accidents would have no insurance because they were at fault. Most of us would find that unhelpful.
I would address the “voluntary quit” rule. I'd go back to the rule that said if you quit your job, you will have a longer waiting period, rather than not being eligible whatsoever. We know that right now the current rules create the incentive for lots of little agreements between employers and employees about who gets laid off and who is fired and who quits. We know that's happening.
Also the move from weeks to hours disadvantages part-timers, who are obviously disproportionately women, in three different ways. If two people were hired on the same day, one worked half time and the other worked full time, then five weeks later they were both laid off, the person who worked part time had half the earnings, but they paid half in. They are less likely to get EI, and if they are eligible for EI, they could get a lower weekly benefit and they would collect benefits for a shorter period of time. They are penalized three different ways for working part time.