Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to comment a little further with regard to employment insurance and the changes in the budget that the Liberals are supporting.
I understand, from what I have read in the budget, that there will be five additional weeks of benefits afforded to people who are entitled to them. However, it does not deal with the two weeks prior, which means that if they cannot get the first two weeks, they wait about 28 days before they get their first cheque.
I was just wondering what impact my colleague feels the changes to EI will have and whether he feels these are as lucrative as the Minister of Human Resources feels they are. I had applied way back when for EI when I was a young teenager and I did not feel that what I was making was lucrative.
In 1996, people used to make $647 a week and now it is down to a maximum of four hundred and some dollars, but on average people only collect about $355 a week. Does my colleague feel that this is lucrative or that it benefits the people who have lost their job? What is the impact on his community?