Madam Speaker, if I am the economic guru, my colleague is certainly the guru of human resources, employment insurance and education. We work very well together. I think he is the expert rather than me on employment insurance.
He has pointed out the areas that we would like to see addressed, possibly weeks of benefit. The government has done that, but arguably the weeks at the end are the least important. We agree on the two week waiting period. We agree on the speed of delivery of the cheques.
I would argue that most important of all, although it is hard to say what is most important but it is extremely important, is the number of hours of work required before a person is eligible to enter the system, particularly in a time of recession.
In terms of our leader's position on how this might evolve, today in an answer to a question, he said that we would look very closely at the way the employment insurance program worked in the coming months. He said that the government had extended the benefit period, but it did not extend the eligibility criteria, and that would be a critical point. He went on to say that if the situation of the unemployed worsened, we would have to take action. We would have to say to the government that its policy had to change, otherwise we would change governments.
This indicates a flexible position on the part of our Liberal Party and our leader, that it is an evolving situation. If the employment situation were to further deteriorate, as it might, then we would call upon the government to change certain employment insurance rules if it wanted to remain the government.