Thank you, Richard.
Good afternoon, members of Parliament and guests. My name is Kristin Ego MacPhail and I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be here to share our thoughts on this legislation.
The mission of the Canadian Young Farmers Forum is to promote the exchange of ideas and to foster collaboration between the young and future farmers of Canada. One focus of our organization is to identify problems encountered by young people looking to become established in agriculture.
My husband Gary and I are young farmers from the Barrie area, where we operate a greenhouse, nursery, and farm market. We have two young children, Sadie, who is three years old, and Ewan, who is three and a half months. Gary and I are both fully self-employed on our farm.
I feel strongly that the extension of EI benefits, like parental and compassionate leave, is a step in the right direction to improving the quality of life for all farm families.
Many young people have moved and continue to move away from agriculture as a profession. One of the things my husband and I considered when deciding if we wanted to farm or not was what supports might be available to us. Gary left his job to join our farm full-time. At that point, we had to give up our access to EI benefits. This was a choice we had to make. We now look at our friends who are employed in other jobs, and when they started their families they had the opportunity to take time off work when their children were born.
On our farm, this program could allow one or both of us to take some time off and hire someone to replace us, even if only for a short term. Maybe not all young farming families would take advantage of this, but at least they would have the opportunity to participate if they chose.
Thank you again for the chance to be here, and I look forward to your questions.