Finance committee  I will just say very briefly, what I heard from Mr. Kelly after the announcement of this credit. In an interview he said this is not going to change the behaviour or the decision-making of any small firm. Overall, it's money that goes to these firms and they can spend it on somet

Finance committee  Well, this is an advocacy group. Obviously, I am not going to judge what their motives are for saying that, but—

Finance committee  Perhaps, but this is obviously so small. At the micro level, definitely this is not going to provide incentive for any firm to hire or fire anybody, it's so small.

Finance committee  Actually, it will have a temporary impact on the economy that will be offset later by a reduction in premium rates. So it does not have a permanent impact on the economy or the number of jobs.

Finance committee  The amount is really small. At the firm level, the maximum that a business can get from this is $2,200. This is a company that would have a payroll of about $600,000 a year. An amount of $2,200 for a firm that has a $600,000 payroll is not really the kind of money that would af

Finance committee  Well, it's a good question. Some of it is that we don't know exactly how they came up with the 25,000 job-years. That requires a period of time that you have to maintain those jobs. This is a temporary measure, so it's not clear how you can maintain that kind of an impact over

Finance committee  Finance multipliers

Finance committee  Well, sir, again, as I said, if we maintain the current Employment Insurance Act, on that basis, no measure under this act that uses the proceeds from the EI premiums can have any permanent job impact, whether negative or positive. It has to be offset over time.

Finance committee  Well, there is a temporary surplus in the account, but for the surplus, as I mentioned earlier, the way that the account is structured—

Finance committee  By the current law, any surplus in that account will have to be offset in the future.

Finance committee  Well, the clock effectively started in 2009, when they created the new operating account for EI. At that point, obviously, there was a deficit in the account, so the rates had to be kept higher. But right now, based on our estimate and the estimate of the Department of Finance, i

Finance committee  Eventually, yes. Exactly.

Finance committee  Relative to what they would have...that's right.

Finance committee  Right now, about 38% of the unemployed have access to EI.

Finance committee  That has trended down.