Senator Patterson: Thank you for the answer, Senator Bellemare. I’m not sure about the accuracy of the statistics from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO, because in 2021, the Eighth Annual Report on Child and Family Poverty on Prince Edward Island highlighted that the federal riding of Charlottetown, which is smaller than the EI zone of Charlottetown, has the highest rate of both child poverty, at 25%, and poverty of people of working age, at 24.4%.

By contrast, the westernmost riding of Egmont, which is entirely in the P.E.I. EI zone, has a 19.4% rate of child poverty and a poverty rate of persons of working age of 14.7%. This is the discrepancy you spoke about in ensuring access to benefits to the working poor in Charlottetown due to requiring 700 qualifying hours compared to 560 hours in the P.E.I. zone.

The authors of that report recommended that the federal government immediately end the division of EI on P.E.I. into two zones, thereby ending that disparity that currently exists among EI recipients in this province.

In light of this information from the annual report on child and family poverty, 2021, would you not conclude that passing Bill S-236 actually benefits the working poor in Prince Edward Island, given that the highest rates of poverty are in the Charlottetown EI zone? Should we not listen to the subject matter experts on Prince Edward Island?

[Translation]

Senator Bellemare: I knew you were going to ask me a question about poverty rates. I didn’t have enough time to study the matter in detail. But it’s not for me to study it. That is why there is an amendment that proposes that the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report be reviewed. Then it will be possible to examine the problem of poverty more thoroughly and determine whether it is truly linked to the number of weeks of benefits and the duration of benefits.

We know, in fact, that unemployment rates change. In September 2022, the unemployment rate in Prince Edward Island as a whole was 8.3%, while it was 7.3% in the Charlottetown zone and 8.7% in Prince Edward Island excluding Charlottetown. With a rate of 8.3%, this is a slight improvement. I am not really sure that the difference between the rates of 7.3%, 8.3% and 8.7% is considerable. All that will be for you to judge and to report to us after the committee does its work.

[English]