Mr. Speaker, I appreciated what the hon. member for Elk Island had to say. I am glad that he too is interested in the fact that so few Canadians actually qualify for EI, even though we all pay into it when we are working.
This gives me an opportunity to expand on that. The member mentioned students and people who go back to school. There are 900,000 Canadians who are in the low paid economy and are trapped there. They are not getting out of that trap. They tend to be older women, people who have generally not received a high school diploma. Almost all of them are not working in a place that is organized by a trade union. They tend to be care workers, nannies and recent immigrants. It is a very bad situation.
I will use the example of Alberta and specifically Calgary which is a booming metropolis as we all know. The minimum wage in Alberta is $5.90 an hour. For a family of four with two adults working it would amount to a little over $28,000 a year. It certainly does not meet the low income cut-off. We do not have a poverty level in this country but we do have low income cut-offs. The average rent in Calgary is some $804 a month. We can see how difficult it would be for a family of four in a city like Calgary. I am not picking on Calgary; it could be any number of cities in this country. That is the reality. With a low minimum wage and a booming economy it is very difficult.
We need training programs. The member for Elk Island is absolutely right. If we could take some of that employment insurance money and drive it into training programs, it would help families like the family I described. It would be to the benefit of this country. It would certainly be to the benefit of families like that one.