Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to debate Bill C-206 and to congratulate my colleague, the member from Nova Scotia, for bringing this forward.
I do not think there is anyone in this place who has not, at one time or another, either personally faced, heard about or had someone close to them who has faced a situation where a family member has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. All of a sudden big life choices must be made about how to deal with that and how to look after that person. We would not have a heart if we were not concerned about that and did not want to find ways to help. My friend has done a good job of starting the debate by introducing Bill C-206 and asking how we address those types of issues.
Not too long ago I was in my office and I had a lady come in who had a family member who was gravely ill. She made a very good point. She said that she had home care coming in to look after this person, but that it was hugely expensive. It was something like $2,500 for a home care person. She said that if someone would give her $700 to stay home, she would do it herself. I thought that was pretty interesting.
There are lots of people thinking about this and my friend is correct when he suggests that this would be a money saver for the health care system. I do not quibble with any of that. It is important that we find a way to deal with those sorts of issues. My friend mentioned that it was raised in the Kirby report. Obviously people from the health care perspective are thinking about this and that is very important.
Where I differ from my friend is with respect to how this should be funded. During his speech my friend mentioned that right now, maternity benefits have been greatly improved. They allow people who have just had a child to spend some time with their new child. I do not think anyone would quibble with that. Everyone wants to see a new mother or father spend some time with their children, especially right after birth. That is a good thing. The question is, how do we fund it?
The reason I do not agree completely with my friend's bill is that I do not think this should be funded out of employment insurance. Employment insurance started out as an insurance program to look after people in the event they lost their jobs through not fault of their own. The premiums would match the payouts and it was pretty simple. Since that time all kinds of new aspects have been added on. The original intent of the program is no longer respected at all in many different ways. I talked about that a little earlier today in the prebudget debate when I said that even the Auditor General said that the intent of the Employment Insurance Act was no longer respected with respect to premiums equalling benefits.
The question is, how do we fund this? The country wants to put money into this. Clearly Gary Mar is talking about this in Alberta. As the population ages and a lot of elderly people at some point in the not too distant future will be facing that last chapter of their lives, how do we address this so that our children have a way to deal with this? I would argue that we should address it through the health care side. That is where we should address it.
The same thing applies, frankly, with respect to maternity benefits. We should not continually ask employers and workers to fund maternity benefits. It should be a separate program. We should make it a social program. We should do the same thing with this issue if that is the will of the provinces and the country. If that is what they want to do, let us hive it off and make it a different program. Let us keep EI for what it was intended. That is what I would rather do.
We could have a big debate about how it is funded. I do not believe we should get away from the original intent of the employment insurance program because it serves us well. The further we get away, the more chance we have of destroying what is a good program. If it were funded through EI then what would we do for people who are self-employed? For example, if a consultant or a farmer has a situation that comes along, that individual would not be eligible for EI benefits. It may make more sense to take that money out of the health care component to fund this.
My friend knows I plan to raise the issue of 52 weeks. He said it might be too long or too short. All I am suggesting is that instead of picking an arbitrary number such as 52 weeks, it may make sense to do some research. First of all it is obvious we need to find out how much this would cost after having gone through the firearms thing. It is important that we nail those facts down so that we know how much we would have to budget.
We should find out for instance what is the average amount of time home care would be needed for palliative care? That should be the figure used rather than an arbitrary 52 weeks.
This issue could be benefited by more study. My friend has mentioned he would like to get it to committee so that it can all be discussed. I do not have a problem with that. We need to have these kinds of discussions. I am not sure if it should be discussed in the human resources committee or perhaps in the health committee. Let us find a way to get it to committee and have some discussion on it.
I will conclude by again congratulating my friend for bringing forward this important issue. It would be one of the most meaningful things in our lives to spend some time with our parents before they pass away and it does not necessarily have to be only parents. We need to find a way to accommodate that. My party strongly believes in family. We must find a way to support families. I know my friend believes in that as well and I applaud him for that.
I would like to wish all my colleagues in the House a Merry Christmas and all the best over the holiday season.