Good morning, Mr. Shillington. It is very interesting to have you here. I was a little frustrated earlier. I have a lot of compassion for women, but because I am useless at mathematics I have a little difficulty understanding when we are talking about ratios and all that. Because figures don't do the job for me, I am going to stick to something I understand.
We want to help Canadians as much as possible. Everyone knows that we are in an economic recession, and no one really knows what is going to happen. Everyday we have good news and bad news; in fact, it is generally bad. I am a fairly positive woman, I am a single mother of two teenagers. When I was a child, I didn't need much, because my parents were well off, but as an adult I hit rock bottom. I was one of those women living below the poverty line. I had $7,000 a year to live on. I know where I have been and I know where I want to go.
We have implemented the Canada Skills and Transition Strategy, which increases the funding available to the provinces for training. It is up to them to decide how they will spend those funds, however. Can you talk to us about self-employed workers? In my riding, there are a lot of self-employed people who work at home. They are a varied group, like the needs and the areas they work in. We want self-employed workers to have access to employment insurance. I think it's a good measure because they have not had access up to now. It is better to take small steps than to sit and twiddle our thumbs.
Our government is going to establish a group of experts who will consult Canadians about the best way to give self-employed workers access to maternity and parental leave benefits.
You are very familiar with the figures and you have worked a lot in this field. Can you tell us how the government should consult this group of experts so that we can help women in particular?