Mr. Speaker, it is hard to name it a benefit when people will receive less money to get through a longer period of time. The flexibility is nice if the money is already in the bank. However, most working families do not already have the money in the bank and they cannot afford to take a 10% pay cut in order to stay home for an extra six months even though they might like to.
The fact is that on top of that 10% pay cut in the immediate future, people need to think about the long-term cut they will take to their CPP benefits because they do not have dropout provisions for the second tier the government brought in.