Mr. Speaker, it is true that I am a very proud member of that committee and I appreciate the work that the committee has done.
I was talking about a balanced approach here. It is a balanced approach to a program which affects millions of people and which involves billions of dollars. The balanced approach includes appreciating that fact and appreciating that the millions of people involved, the people who are working and the people who are not working, because it includes both, deserve management decisions on the commission and for rate setting which take into account all the variables.
My colleague is perfectly right that the standing committee recommended a whole variety of things. There was something in this part of the EI program, something in that part of the EI program and so on. By the way, each one taken by itself has a benefit, but in the end if one is in government one makes decisions based on the whole thing. For example, over the years there has been an extension of maternity and parental benefits to a year in Canada. This is something that was not necessary 10 or 12 years ago, but we need to have it now. There is the new compassionate care benefit and so on.
My short answer to my colleague is that given the balance of all the changes and all the variables in the EI program, I believe the 14 weeks should be given a chance to run. Let us see what the effect is.