Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the hon. member by asking what he would do about those who have paid premiums for a long time, those who have not collected benefits for many years of work who find themselves without work and are unable find a job. The bill was directed specifically to them.
It does not say that others might not want to have been on the system. We have a certain set of dollars for the particular group we have targeted, those who are hurt most by the unfortunate economic conditions. What would he say to those people? Approximately 190,000 would be benefited by the bill. What would he say to them about the fact that he and his party voted against that bill? If they had their way, those benefits would have been taken away from 190,000 potential recipients.
Even if the member wanted to benefit another group or a different group of people, why would he and his party vote against the bill, other than the fact that at the time they were of the view that they wanted to trigger an election that no one wanted. Therefore, the interest at which those members were looking at that time was self-interest and not the interest of the people who were intended to be benefited from the bill.
The member is right. We have taken many actions to help hundreds of thousands of Canadians through our changes and improvements to the employment insurance program. Indeed, we added five extra weeks of EI benefits to all Canadians on EI. More than 365,000 Canadians have received additional weeks of benefits, thanks to the extra five weeks which were included in our economic action plan.
Therefore, we were not excluding anyone when we did that. All Canadians were affected quickly by the sudden onset of the economic troubles and the large number of layoffs that happened last fall and winter. We took action and provided the five extra weeks of benefits to all who needed them.
However, we did even more than that. We froze the premiums for 2010. We are delivering on our commitment to improve the governance and management of the EI account by establishing the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board.
We have taken action that is helping businesses and workers immensely in a way that is protecting jobs and helping companies. We are doing this through improved and more accessible work-sharing agreements. That was very well received, preserving jobs that otherwise would not be there. More than 167,000 Canadians were protected by work-sharing agreements, which are in place with almost 6,000 employers across Canada. It is a win situation for the employers and for the employees, and it was very well received.
These jobs are being protected. The workers are being retained by their companies. Their skills are staying up to date. This is a big help to businesses across Canada.
Our government also focused on helping Canadians get back to work so they could provide for their families. That is why we made unprecedented investments in skills training. The career transition assistance program is a new initiative that will help an estimated 40,000 long-tenured workers who need additional support for retraining to find a new job. We have extended the duration of EI regular benefits for eligible workers for up to two years if they are in longer term training. We are allowing earlier access to EI for eligible workers by investing in their training by using all or part of their severance package.
These steps have been taken because we know that those who are unemployed need some extra assistance in not only upgrading themselves, but also finding other jobs. Where possible, we try to preserve their jobs.