Mr. Speaker, that is an extremely relevant question that has not received all the attention it deserves.
The $15,000 limit on EI premiums paid by businesses is problematic. Businesses can benefit from the contribution holiday only if they did not reach that limit, which could induce them to limit their activities. If a business expands and has to pay $15,500 or $16,000 per year in premiums, it might be motivated to reduce its employees' hours of work or lay someone off—although I doubt that would happen—in order to be able to benefit from this contribution holiday.
There is therefore a perverse incentive for companies whose premiums are close to the limit set by the government to take advantage of this contribution holiday. The negative impact of this system must be examined more carefully by the committee. However, we had only five meetings, including the meeting with officials, to look at the impact of this bill. The process was bungled and does not at all reflect the complexity of the issues we examined.