Madam Speaker, I thank the Bloc Québécois and its critic for their support of the bill. I look forward to positive and constructive suggestions from her and her party.
Canada will be among some countries that have indicated that they want to protect wages for working men and women. The member mentioned the U.K. and Australia. In some cases there are other countries where the employers must pay for this particular benefit for their workers and in some cases it is the government, through the taxpayer, that will look after these particular workers. There are various arrangements between countries.
Ontario had a wage earner protection program some time ago but the employer was expected to contribute. Of course when the Conservative government of Mr. Harris came into Ontario he scrapped the wage earner protection program because obviously he did not want the employers to have to pay for it.
We will share numerous examples with our colleagues. We believe this model of having the government, through the taxpayers, make an investment of $30 million to $50 million a year to look after our working men and women, the most vulnerable in our society, is a small investment. We will share examples from other countries with the committee as it looks to developing the proper model. After having looked at all of the models around the world we believe this one is the right one for Canada.