Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question, Ms. Chabot. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do. We're looking at everything we feel is important to workers across the country. You mentioned that only 40% of workers are eligible for EI benefits. So it's important that we review the program's accessibility policies.

Human Resources committee  We're looking at what can be done for the future. However, since the pandemic is still in full sway, we remain focused on income support programs for workers. We hope that, in the fall or next year, we will be able to move forward with further measures to reform the employment insurance program.

Human Resources committee  Thanks for the question, Mr. Long. As you pointed out, the EI sickness benefit right now provides support, I would say, to just over 400,000 people annually, with about 35% or 36% of them making use of all 15 weeks of the benefits that are available. The relatively simple math there is that perhaps 120,000 people might benefit from that extension from 15 weeks to 26 weeks.

Human Resources committee  That's another great question. It is also a challenging one, I would say, in that the two programs have.... While it's true that one seems to be more short term and one longer term, they really do have different objectives. In the case of EI, it is providing some temporary income support for people who are expected to return to work, in fact even to their own job, versus Canada pension plan disability, which is focused on people with a severe and prolonged disability of some kind, essentially, people who are not expected to be able to work again.

Human Resources committee  I will have to look to see if I have those figures in terms of take-up of the new caregiving benefits. I would say, first, that these were changes that were brought about at the end of 2017 to create a new family caregiver benefit for adults and for children. This was to lower the bar in terms of—how might I describe it—the condition that the person is in when someone is able to provide care to them and receive caregiving benefits.

Human Resources committee  In terms of the Canada recovery benefit, it's now just under $10 billion, $9.6 billion to date. In terms of the Canada recovery sickness benefit, it's $328 million to date, and in terms of the Canada recovery caregiving benefit, it's $1.34 billion to date. Those are the latest figures we have available.

Human Resources committee  There would certainly be more than normal paid out from the EI operating account. That really comes from two factors. One is simply that because of the economic conditions of many people having been laid off—

Human Resources committee  There's that. There's also the impact of the temporary measures providing greater access and greater generosity—that minimum $500 per week benefit rate. Roughly speaking, we estimate that this would be, over the course of the year, about $10 billion additional.

Human Resources committee  Right now, the challenge is understanding where the economics will go over the next, in fact, seven years to determine what the increase is. Certainly there's upward pressure in terms of increased benefits, which could push premium rates up. I think one of the things that's important to recognize is that—as was also done with the CERB, which was of course very substantial spending—the CRB will not be charged to the EI operating account.

Human Resources committee  Indeed that's correct. Normally—

Human Resources committee  I can certainly say we're taking a look at what the impact would be in terms of the premium rate. In terms of changes to rate-setting policy, that's something the government would need to bring forward legislation to change the parameters on, because right now there is a 5¢ legislated limit in terms of the change from year to year.

Human Resources committee  Certainly whenever we take a look at a policy change, we're looking as well at what the impact would be on EI premiums.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Benoît. Thanks for the question. I'm Andrew Brown, the director general for employment insurance policy. That also includes policy for the Canada recovery benefit. What I can tell you right now is that we are monitoring very closely the use of those benefits. We know that, since the end of September, when people moved from the CERB to EI regular benefits and others would have started to receive the Canada recovery benefit, they could use up the 26 weeks of benefits available as early as the end of March, so we are continuing to monitor use.

Human Resources committee  We're trying to understand the number of people who could be running out of benefits so that we could provide options.

Human Resources committee  Exactly, we're looking at the numbers, trying to understand how many people may run out at the end of March.