Mr. Speaker, the budget included a temporary extension of employment insurance benefits, supposedly in response to the drop in oil prices. Initially, the government announced that 12 regions would be included. It then added three more regions, but failed to include them in the legislation, so the NDP has tried to help out by putting forward an amendment to include those three regions.
However, even with that change, we are still in a situation where among the eight EI regions in Alberta and Saskatchewan seven will receive the benefit extension, but Regina still will not. I wonder if the Minister of Finance could explain if he thinks it is reasonable to exclude this one part of the two main oil and gas producing provinces from the EI benefit extension and whether he could commit today to include Regina so that all of Alberta and Saskatchewan would be part of this extension of EI benefits for laid-off workers from the oil and gas sector.