The first answer is that certainly self-employment is an increasing share of the economy, so the exclusion of the self-employed is a problem. Then again, I'm not sure how we could cover the self-employed for regular benefits. For maternity and parental caregiving, yes, but for regular benefits, I think that would be a problem.
More and more people are having two or three jobs. Imagine someone who has one job that's paid employment--they're an employee--and another job that's self-employment. They're mixing the two. Then they get laid off from the paid employment job. Well, I would assume that they're not eligible for the EI benefits because of their self-employment; they could be available, but they'd be clawed back.
So we have people living complex lives. I think the system is out of joint with that.
I've said what I would do to change it. I think I'm being realistic about the chance of this happening soon. I would revisit the two big changes, the big change of going from weeks to hours, which had exactly the opposite effect of what we were told in 1996 the effect would be, and the total, complete exclusion of voluntary quits from the system, rather than simply a small penalty as existed previously.
I would do both of those things. However, I'm not fooling myself that it would happen quickly.