Human Resources committee  This is Ezra.

Human Resources committee  Thank you. By training, I am an aluminum welder and carpenter. My career started in 2011 when I graduated from St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ontario. I chose to go into the trades for the stability of employment opportunities. I thought they would provide me with the money

Human Resources committee  I have three suggestions. One thing that needs to be considered is the idea that a woman could choose to wean herself back to work. The way our EI system works is that either you're using it or you're not. When it comes to pregnancy and maternity, we need to maybe consider a prog

Human Resources committee  Sure. I fell into welding by accident; I actually tried to be a carpenter. I moved to Wolfe Island and I met the president of MetalCraft Marine on the island. Hitchhiking is really popular on the island, and he picked me up one day and we started chatting and he encouraged me to

Human Resources committee  This was his take on it. He encouraged me to apply, and I did. He said they'd be very interested in training me, which they did. I started out as a marine outfitter. They paid me $14 an hour, and I got annual cost-of-living raise. They raised the pay once a year for everybody—I

Human Resources committee  It was three months. Actually, I had been welding boats for only three days when I found out I was pregnant. I was scheduled to get my raise to $17 an hour, which is actually the minimum for welders in the company.

Human Resources committee  Yes. It was with the company.

Human Resources committee  I had been scheduled to receive a raise and then move up to boats, but I got pregnant, so I never saw that. Obviously, that wasn't reflected in my maternity benefits, because I hadn't put in enough time. Did I answer your question fully?

Human Resources committee  It would offer more stability. For me, it's a blue-collar job and it doesn't pya that much money—not to begin with, anyway. Eventually, as you progress through the career, you can make very good money welding, but I was just at the beginning of it. If I had that stability. If I

Human Resources committee  Do you mean specifically with the EI program?

Human Resources committee  One of the most striking things I experienced through this is that I didn't actually interact with a person when I filed for my benefits. Nobody sat down with me and said, “Let's look at your unique situation. Have you considered this option or that option? If you take this road,

Human Resources committee  I don't know. I don't work with money. Another idea could be having a website designed where people would input their unique situations and suggestions would be output for a path to take. Maybe that's just a one-off cost and then people could interact with it on their own. I don

Human Resources committee  No.

Human Resources committee  Yes, I would like to. I addressed in my speech the fact that the gap with no income and my benefits getting cut off when my son was really young threw me off course. I ended up using the Ontario Works program, which was another deduction in income. All of that has created a lot

Human Resources committee  For the marine industry you don't need a ticket.