Human Resources committee  That is the rate that.... The legislation says that the rate the self-employed pay, if they choose to opt in, for the rest of Canada, is the same as employees pay, and in Quebec, it's also the same as employees pay. It's been determined to be--

Human Resources committee  It's identical. It's a principle-based approach. Other rates and principles could have been chosen, but the idea was that this is a fair rate that roughly reflects the costs. That's why we say it is very close to break-even—maybe a little more, maybe a bit less—and it is also a r

Human Resources committee  Yes. We have some estimates based on the projections. Again, the costs will depend on the number of people who are joining. I think if we--

Human Resources committee  We absolutely have. I've been trying to explain for a while how we go about...[Inaudible--Editor]...the estimate--

Human Resources committee  Well, we have that initially in the first year we'll actually make money, and then in the later years, if our projections are right on, it will not fully cover the costs and--

Human Resources committee  We think that in a steady state it will possibly be not fully self-financing, in the range of about $70 million a year.

Human Resources committee  A mid-range estimate--

Human Resources committee  I don't think we've made it public. It's a range. It's an estimate. Can it change a little bit? Yes, as the minister said, it's possible that it actually could be closer to zero and it could possibly be a little higher. But we have a fairly firm idea here because we know that t

Human Resources committee  Indeed, the chief actuary did look at it. The chief actuary is--

Human Resources committee  Well, the chief actuary has multiple functions.

Human Resources committee  It is possible. As we said, our mid-point range is that it would require a one-cent increase in the rate if that happens. It may be a little bit less; it may be a tiny bit more. I think we need to put this in the context of it being a large program. The EI program is a $15-billio

Human Resources committee  What we have is a range of--

Human Resources committee  We have the range of costs and we have a mid-point projection.

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  He has a role as the chief actuary for the account. He also works for HRSDC as our chief actuary when we do our policy work. He and his team carefully looked at these numbers and were important in the projections of these numbers.