Bill C-24 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (additional regular benefits), the Canada Recovery Benefits Act (restriction on eligibility) and another Act in response to COVID-19

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act in order, temporarily, to increase the maximum number of weeks for which regular benefits may be paid under Part I of that Act and facilitate access to benefits for self-employed persons under Part VII.‍1 of that Act.
It also amends the Canada Recovery Benefits Act to
(a) add a condition to provide that a person is eligible for benefits only if they were not, at any time during a benefit period, required to quarantine or isolate themselves under any order made under the Quarantine Act as a result of entering into Canada or
(i) if they were required to do so, the only reason for their having been outside Canada was to receive a necessary medical treatment or to accompany someone who was required to receive a necessary medical treatment, or
(ii) if, as a result of entering into Canada, they were required to isolate themselves under such an order at any time during the benefit period, they are a person to whom the requirement to quarantine themselves under the order would not have applied had they not been required to isolate themselves; and
(b) authorize the Minister of Health to assist the Minister of Employment and Social Development in verifying whether a person meets the eligibility condition referred to in paragraph 3(1)‍(m), 10(1)‍(i) or 17(1)‍(i) of the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and to disclose personal information obtained under the Quarantine Act to the Minister of Employment and Social Development for that purpose.
And finally, it amends the Customs Act to authorize the disclosure of information for the purpose of administering or enforcing the Canada Recovery Benefits Act.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (additional regular benefits), the Canada Recovery Benefits Act (restriction on eligibility) and another Act in response to COVID-19, be read the third time and passed.

Employment Insurance Act

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to put further remarks on the record concerning Bill C-24, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Recovery Benefits Act and another act in response to COVID-19. The four main changes in this legislation are as follows. It amends the EI Act, to temporarily increase the maximum EI benefit period from 26 weeks to 50 weeks for the period beginning September 27, 2020, and ending on September 25, 2021.

It also temporarily reduces the earnings threshold to $5,000 from an original $7,550 for self-employed workers who have opted into the EI special benefits period beginning on January 3, 2021, and ending September 25, 2021.

It also closes the leisure travel loophole in the original legislation that was passed in September, which permitted leisure travellers, when they were quarantining for two weeks, to access the CRB. As we know, this seems immoral and unethical. Thankfully this legislation moves to close that. Conservative members raised the alarm on this loophole in December and January and here we are, three months later, finally closing that loophole.

The act would also bring in the Minister of Health, by amending the Quarantine Act, and the Canada Border Services Agency, by amending the Customs Act to share Canada recovery benefit application information. It would seem that this, in particular, is how they are going to audit applicants if they have applied for these monies following travel. Of course, there is essential travel for the purpose of supporting those with medical needs, or seeking medical treatment outside of the country. Obviously we understand that sometimes those benefits are necessary when returning from quarantine but certainly not from travel, as Conservative members have been raising for a number of months.

There has been a lot of discussion this week, particularly from Liberal members, which really began very aggressively this past weekend. The Prime Minister commented on this, and the Liberals really seem to want to paint a narrative that Conservatives were obstructionists on this legislation. This is completely untrue, and we worked very closely with parties to ensure that this was passed. I would point out that the first opportunity to debate the bill in the House was Monday. That was five days ago, and here we are. It has gone through second reading, to committee, and now back to third reading in only five days. I will remind members of the House that this is $12.1 billion of spending that went through the legislative process in five short days.

Conservatives understand, as do Canadians, that the onset of the pandemic was an emergency situation. We were trying to get money out the door to the nine million Canadians who were instantly laid off because of pandemic closures. We can understand that legislation was rushed through at an unforeseen speed compared with normal legislative levels. Members of Parliament who have been here far longer than I will recognize that the speed of legislation passing in the House this past year has been exponentially higher than at any other time, probably, in Canadian history.

However, it is now a year later, and that excuse to pass legislation quickly, which of course diminishes oversight capabilities and our democratic process in the House substantially, is beginning to lose its steam. Again, in a panic situation that made sense.

That is why I was quite disappointed that the bill, which expands EI benefits from 26 weeks to 50 weeks, took so long for the Liberals to bring forward. In September, we came together as parties and voted in favour of the switchover from CERB to the CRB and EI extension. The EI extension was for 26 weeks, or half a year, which brought us to March 28 when those EI benefits would begin to run out, about two weeks from now.

The odd thing is that we knew the second wave was coming. With second waves, we saw incredibly strict lockdowns that lasted for months. In Manitoba, we saw very strict lockdowns and non-essential services were shut down. We saw stores where non-essential items were taped up and we could not buy them, at least not in person. People were ordering them online, but we could not go into a store and buy non-essential items. Restaurants were closed. It was incredibly strict for a number of months. That began in mid- to early November across the country.

We would think that with some foresight from the Liberal government, the 200,000 expert civil servants it has, and the access to international economists and notable financiers, it would have thought maybe half a year for EI benefits would not be enough. In my opinion, those discussions should have started in November. Maybe they did, but it took far too long for the Liberals to finally bring forward legislation that extended those 26 weeks to basically a year: 50 weeks, which was needed.

In November, these lockdowns were coming and people went through the holidays, and now some regions of the country are still in those lockdowns. Anyone would think that maybe that second wave would take away millions of jobs, and that is what happened, as we saw historic employment losses. I think 213,000 jobs were lost in that period. One would think that the Liberals, with all of the experts at their fingertips, would have established this legislation earlier; yet it was not brought forward until the end of February. Again, the first opportunity to debate it was on Monday. As I mentioned, the legislation would extend EI to 50 weeks, which would bring us to the end of September.

When legislation was first brought forward in September, while I cannot know what the Liberals were thinking, I would expect they thought that the situation in six months would hopefully have improved and that we would start getting those jobs back. Then again with the second wave, one would think that maybe this was going to go down and not up and that we were not going to get those jobs back. That is when this legislation should have been planned.

When we spoke to the Canadian Labour Congress officials at committee, they mentioned that they had raised the alarm with the Liberal government in early January that far more than 26 weeks was going to be needed. We know that the Liberal government is closely monitoring the labour market, so again I just do not buy it that the end of February was the earliest the Liberal government could have brought this forward. It has been done under the wire to ensure that it passes before the EI benefits run out on March 28. That is lightning speed, passing this five days from when we first debated it.

Here we are. It went through second reading, zoomed through committee and now we are at third reading. It is going to go to the Senate and I hope and pray that people get the benefits they need. There are three million Canadians who are depending on this money.

Again, $12.1 billion for this bill was approved. That is $6.7 billion for the CERB and $5.4 billion for the EI extension. The only way to change the EI extension was through legislation, and we understand that. The CFIB and labour groups are supportive. As the minister has pointed out to me and others, Bill C-24 is 11 clauses, but it is 11 clauses at a very steep cost.

I appreciate the robust debate, although it is very limited, we have had in the last five days. It is absolutely necessary. I very much hope that the Liberals did their due diligence on this, that we are not missing something and we will not be here in a month or two months from now fixing something that perhaps could have been caught had we had a longer time, perhaps an extra couple of weeks, to debate this. I think I have belaboured that point enough for now.

There is another issue with this, though, that I have addressed with the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion and the government several times over the last number of weeks. My colleagues in the Conservative caucus, as well, have brought up this very critical issue. The issue is the problem between the CERB and EI. If someone does not qualify for the EI extension, they can go on the CERB. However, if they have had an EI account or an EI claim recently, there is this very archaic EI technology that sort of hangs them up. They will have their EI account pending open; then they try to get the CERB, which families desperately need but cannot then get it because there is some sort of technology problem there.

I asked the CRA officials about it this week, and they said that millions of people do not have this problem. They are very proud, as they should be, to have gotten a lot of money out the door for people who need it. The official pointed out that there are only a couple of thousand people who are dealing with the CERB-EI issue.

Again, that is a couple of thousand Canadian families who are absolutely dependent on this funding and cannot get it because of this weird technology issue. If work had been done on this technology issue a year ago, recognizing that the archaic EI system would be put under a tremendous strain and they had planned for this and invested more money in technology than they have so far, which so far been ineffective at fixing this problem, I wonder if this problem might have been prevented.

I continue to raise the alarm on this, as do my Conservative colleagues, and yet it is just not getting fixed. The CRA told me that there is this number at ESDC that people can call. I asked the minister and she had not heard of it. Her officials checked and there is no number, but they have a task force to fix this.

Madam Speaker, I will mention on the record some of the people who are being impacted by this. I believe it is very relevant to Bill C-24 because this is the CRB-EI bill and yet there is a CRB-EI technology issue that is preventing thousands of Canadians from getting the support they desperately need and have been promised by the Liberal Government.

Laura has a sick 13-year-old daughter at home and is unable to claim the Canada recovery caregiver benefit because of this open EI claim issue. Jennifer, a young mother from the Windsor-Essex area, was forced to rely on credit cards because she kept getting bounced between departments. We hear this a lot. There are people being kicked around, being told that the government cannot deal with it and that they should call another person, and they call that person and are told to call another person.

Adam and Michelle, a Winnipeg couple with a newborn baby, have been calling CRA in shifts. We know, at tax time, calling CRA is an absolute nightmare. Right now, it is a nightmare times 1,000. People are calling, getting put on hold for four, five, six hours and getting disconnected passed around to other people. People are sort of kicking the can down the road and being told that some other bureaucrat will deal with it. I find it absolutely unacceptable that people are waiting for this money they have been promised. They need it. They have been laid off through no fault of their own and yet they cannot get through to the CRA.

There is nowhere physically that they can go. Service Canada has been closed for a year. There is nowhere they can go to ask someone to please help them. They cannot get through to a real person who can give them answers, and there is just really no fix for this. The minister has committed to fixing it, but there is no deadline for when that is going to happen and these people have been left with no option.

The last thing I will say about this is that there is a further complication. There is MyCRA account, which I have been locked out of as well, but over 100,000 Canadians' MyCRA accounts have been hacked, and so they have been locked out of them too. Apparently the CRA is telling people to go online and deal with it, but then 100,000 people have been locked out of their CRA accounts. I guess there are cybersecurity issues in this country and over 100,000 people's tax accounts have been hacked. That very serious problem is further impacting progress and payments for these thousands of Canadian families. I wanted to address this issue yet again and urge the Liberal government to do whatever it needs to do to fix this problem.

I would like to talk about what is not in this bill but should have been, or at least should have been part of the Liberal talking points, and that is how we get out of this. How do we get three million people currently relying on benefits off the benefits and back into the workforce? I do not know. I have yet to hear a plan, and that is of particular concern to me and I know opposition parties, in particular, the Conservatives. Now that it has been a year, we are raising the alarm. Where is the jobs plan on this?

The numbers are really astounding. We have spent unbelievable amounts of money. There are 3.17 million Canadians on some form of temporary COVID-19 assistance, and we know that over 831,000 people were on the CRB during the period of February 14 to 27. There are almost 1.8 million unique applicants for the CRB and $12 billion has been spent to date, which is double what was originally planned by this date, according to the parliamentary budget office. There are currently over 2.3 million beneficiaries of EI, with $20.21 billion being spent on them since September 21. These numbers are so huge, I cannot quite wrap my head around them, and more is being announced. As I have said today, we are to spend about $12.1 billion as a result of this bill. Based on the track record over the last year of cost overruns, it is going to be significantly more than that.

I firmly believe that Canadians do not want to be sitting at home on employment insurance or the like. I do believe people want the integrity and honour of having a job. I do not think Canadians want to be sitting at home. From what I hear from my constituents, people are going a bit crazy at home, because they are stuck there with no jobs and the kids are out of school. It is absolutely unbelievable the stress that young parents in particular are under right now. I could get into that and go on, honestly, for days about the horror stories I have heard of the stress this is causing Canadians and my constituents.

The minister said yesterday at the HUMA committee that she did not want to come back to renew these supports via legislation despite rapid collaboration at committee. She made that commitment, in saying that she did not want to have to come back to fix some problem with this straightforward piece of legislation. I hope she is right. I hope we did not miss something and in a month from now to have to come back at lightning speed to fix this again, but we very well may.

The problem is that in Bill C-24 there is essentially a sunset clause of September 25. That is when these CRB-EI benefits will come to a close. That is about six or seven months away, so I think we can all hope and pray that people will not need these supports then and that there will be jobs coming back. As I mentioned in my speech on Monday, September 25 kind of coincides with when the Liberal government has reportedly promised that every Canadian will be vaccinated who wants to be. I guess we could infer that if everyone is vaccinated, we could get the economy back to normal and jobs could come flowing back, but the Liberal government has not actually made that a definitive promise, that when everyone is vaccinated the economy can open up as normal and we can go back to normal. I do not know why it has not given us some sort of measures—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I have to interrupt the member. She will have four minutes to complete her speech after oral questions.

We go now to statements by members.

The hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge Park.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (additional regular benefits), the Canada Recovery Benefits Act (restriction on eligibility) and another act in response to COVID-19, be read the third time and passed.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to put further words and remarks on the record regarding Bill C-24.

I would like to conclude my remarks with what I touched on before question period. It is imperative, and it is the responsibility of the Liberal government, to bring forward a coherent strategy to bring back jobs in Canada.

It has been 12 months, an entire year, since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. We saw lockdowns and restrictions come to Canada, which have completely altered the everyday lives of Canadians, some in very negative ways, as we have heard from parties on the floor of the House of Commons regarding what has been happening to constituents in that time.

Although we have been able to work together as a House of Commons, there is increasing pressure on the government from all parties that it bring forward a plan for jobs. Bill C-24 would have been the opportune time, given the one-year anniversary since this all began, for it to have brought forward a plan.

All we really heard this week, in honour of International Women's Day, was the announcement of a task force comprised of 18 women, which sounds great, to give the government some advice on how to help women out of the economic downturn they are experiencing. Of course, we know women have been disproportionately impacted. In fact, over 100,000 women have left the job force altogether because there are no jobs available to them.

With respect to immigrants, 4% of our permanent residents have left Canada. Usually, we have a 3% increase per year, but 4% have left this year because there are no opportunities for them either.

We know young people, newcomers and women are all being impacted. Those who are the most vulnerable have been made more vulnerable in this economy. I would urge the Liberal government to bring forward a coherent strategy to bring back jobs.

This is very pertinent to Bill C-24 because of its sunset date. These CRB and EI extension benefits only go until September 25. That is just over six months away. What is going to happen after that? Is there going to be a roll-off strategy? Is the Liberal government expecting millions of jobs to miraculously return?

We know that over 800,000 jobs have already disappeared altogether. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the CFIB, has said that up to 220,000 small businesses may be eliminated because of the pandemic and up to three million jobs will disappear as well as a result.

It is incredibly important that the Liberal government bring forward a plan to Canadians. It may turn to its $100 billion it announced in the fall it was going to use for stimulus, which is great, but we do not just need billions of dollars of stimulus. We need an actual strategy for industry to unleash the 20-million-person workforce in our country and get them back to work so every industry, our economy and our country are working once again. That is what I would like to see.

I hope the Liberal government has heard these pleas and will bring forward a strategy to give Canadians hope. Canadians really do need that plan, and they need hope.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague's speech was a very thorough, information-packed and concisely addressed, unlike that of the parliamentary secretary who preceded her.

On behalf of dozens of my constituents in Thornhill, I would also like to thank her for bringing up the contradiction regarding the people who left the CERB, made an application to EI as directed, were refused EI access and were directed to apply for the CRB and were denied. They have been left in limbo for months because of a computer glitch showing an EI account was left open.

I wonder if the minister addressed this problem, which she promised to fix more than a month ago, when she appeared before committee yesterday.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, it has been such a pleasure to work with the member for Thornhill over the last year and a half. I consider him very much a mentor. It has been such an honour to learn from him and his esteemed reputation, his knowledge. I thank the member.

To his question, I have raised this concern several times with the minister and the response I keep getting for CRB-EI issue and thousands of Canadians not being able to access any of these programs as a result is that they are working on it, that there is a task force. Then one department will say that there is a number and another department says that there is no number, but there is a task force.

There is no end in sight for these individuals, thousands of people, single moms, young parents. I do not know why there is not more urgency. I find it incredibly disappointing. I will keep on it.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Madam Speaker, I have two questions.

The first one is related to the sickness benefits. I know her party supported the proposals in the House that sickness benefits be increased. I want to ask her whether she is sincere in that, knowing that so many people have relied on sickness benefits during this pandemic and they have run out. Is the Conservative Party fully in support of increasing sickness benefits under EI?

Second, given the pandemic, many Canadians have had to rely on employment insurance. I know through my own experience as a member of Parliament during the Harper years that the Conservatives were not very helpful to people who relied on employment insurance. Is there a change of heart in the Conservative Party on the importance of EI for workers?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives absolutely support getting help to Canadians that need it, particularly in this incredibly difficult time when there are very little alternatives. We have been disappointed repeatedly that the Liberal government comes forward, announces all these programs, yet leaves thousands and thousands of Canadians behind, much like the CRB-EI issue.

Yesterday, in the HUMA committee, the member's hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona brought forward an amendment to Bill C-24, which the Conservatives were prepared to support, for a prescribed illness, injury and quarantine. Unfortunately, the Liberal government resoundingly put a stop to that, very disappointingly. We were prepared to support the NDP amendment.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for hard work on this file. I find it interesting. The Conservatives have been calling for fixes to Bill C-24 for quite some time. The Liberals have been calling us obstructionists, yet they are the ones filibustering at committee.

Could my hon. colleague and friend address some of those hypocritical statements that the government has been alleging over the last number of weeks?

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, it has been great to get to know the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot over the last year and a half. We were elected at the same time. Yes, he hits on a very good point. They have stopped now, but over the last week, the Liberals were calling us obstructionists. Of course, we know that is completely untrue. We were very prepared to work with them.

I did not get into this in my speech, and I will not really get into this now, but I want the member to know that there were a lot of Liberal shenanigans going on at that committee. It was very disappointing to hear the Liberals, on one hand, publicly talking about collaboration and then, on the other hand, taking underhanded, behind the scenes actions to undermine the effectiveness of Conservative members, undermining the collaborative nature that we were hoping to have with Bill C-24.

Thankfully, we are very strong on the Conservative side. Ultimately we did collaborate, and here we are debating this at third reading.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, workers across Quebec and Canada are waiting with bated breath to see whether the House will pass Bill C-24, which is currently before us.

These people are holding their breath because they are desperate to know whether they will receive EI benefits. The number of weeks of benefits they were entitled to have run out, and phones are ringing everywhere as people try to find out what tomorrow holds.

Bill C-24 answers that question by extending the EI regular benefit period to 50 weeks. The bill will also fix something that we, the Bloc Québécois, have been calling on the government to fix since December by creating an exemption so that people will no longer be able to claim the $1,000 Canada recovery sickness benefit when they return from a non-essential trip. That is the essence of the bill.

Once again, we think it is regrettable how often since the beginning of the crisis we have had to rush back to the House to ram through bills that make all the difference for workers who are waiting with bated breath.

Some members may recall that I spoke in this chamber on September 26, 2020, when the House resumed after prorogation. For weeks, we had been urgently calling on the government to pass Bill C-2, the purpose of which was to make the EI program more flexible and implement the three new benefits we are all familiar with, namely, the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit.

Back in September, I began my speech with these remarks:

Sometimes the saying “better late than never” applies, but not here since it is too late for the bill before us. In fact, the three economic support benefits in this bill, which affect thousands of workers and were announced by the government on August 20, are still not in place, while the CERB ended yesterday.

That is the situation we find ourselves in and it is utterly deplorable. I am outraged.

Bill C-24 changes absolutely nothing. We have time; we would have had time to reflect on and think about the best measures to put in place for EI, this enormous program, so that workers, people who are ill and people on maternity leave will not be left wondering what will happen to them from one day to the next. We are simply putting off the problem every month through these temporary measures, when we should be introducing the permanent, structuring and useful measures that reflect the true reality of work for the people concerned.

I am outraged. My colleagues know me and may be sick of listening to me, but I am not done. Since my work in the House began, I have probably uttered the term “employment insurance” 200 times. I was thinking that perhaps I should start saying “unemployment insurance” and maybe that term would resonate with people.

I often say that we must be open, as legislators, to settling once and for all the issue of permanently increasing sickness leave benefits to 50 weeks.

I have been calling for this from day one for a reason. I strongly believed that the government would rise to the occasion during this crisis for which our EI program is inadequate. It could have taken the opportunity to change EI instead of viewing it as a threat and taking a piecemeal approach. The government had that mandate.

The pandemic is a convenient excuse for everything, and we are told that the crisis needs to be managed. That is what we are told when we point out that there needs to be a significant increase in the old age security pension. There has never been a measure brought in to permanently and predictably increase the pension. Temporary measures are brought in instead. The same goes for the Canada health transfers.

This same government had a mandate in 2015 to review the EI program. It has received countless reports and solutions for making the program suit the reality of the workforce and to address the fact that many people are ineligible.

This is unacceptable for a so-called social program designed to protect workers. The government had that mandate.

The minister found the mandate a bit too late, after the throne speech. The government claims to be working on it, but we know that the bill before us is another temporary measure that will expire on September 25, 2021, if I am not mistaken. It is March now, so there are six months left.

What is the government's plan beyond September 25, 2021? Has the government calculated that the job market will have recovered and that the existing EI system will be adequate?

The answer to that question should be “no”, because the system is inadequate. The system is based on the number of hours worked, which clearly needs to be changed.

I gave the House some examples on Monday. With the system that is now in place, women who hold what are increasingly non-standard, part-time jobs are finding it difficult to qualify for EI. Women take maternity or parental leave, using up their weeks of benefits, after which they cannot qualify for EI. If they lose their jobs, they are refused regular benefits. This flaw must be addressed.

Seasonal workers suffer a loss of revenue between periods of employment and end up without EI because of the gaps during which they were not working. This is also something we have to put an end to. No worker should have to go through that.

For them and for sick, suffering or injured workers for whom 15 weeks are not enough, temporary measures are insufficient. There needs to be a real system that will guarantee them 50 weeks of EI benefits.

That is the mission of the Bloc Québécois, a mission that outlines a vision, is promising and takes the reality of the people we represent into account.

In Quebec and Canada, workers are the lifeblood of our job market. We see how essential all of these people are in the health care, social services and other sectors. They are essential because they contribute to our economic strength, our social strength and the strength of our labour market. There has to be a balance, and we need permanent changes. I cannot emphasize that enough.

We will vote in favour of Bill C-24 because, as I said on Monday, we have no choice. Is there any other choice?

If we do not vote in favour of this bill, workers will find themselves without any income tomorrow morning. What is more, many people have reached out to us via telephone, press release and other methods to tell us just how necessary these measures still are.

That is why we are going to vote in favour of Bill C-24. It is not because we like the way the government is forcing us into this. On the contrary, I think that the government could and should do things differently. It has everything it needs to present a much more permanent and strategic vision in the future. I am calling on the government and urging it to do just that, when it has the opportunity to do so in the very near future in the next budget.

My Bloc Québécois colleague's bill, Bill C-265, could really make a difference by increasing EI sickness benefits from 15 to 50 weeks. That was yet another opportunity for the government to take action because it was an election issue last time around. There were plenty of commitments, promises and mandate letters, but nothing was done because the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and action had to be taken. The thing is, taking action during a pandemic does not mean doing the same thing forever after. It means thinking about what the future should look like and coming up with much more strategic measures. That is what people expect.

That is why I am working so hard and with such determination to make sure nobody else falls through the cracks. I also want to make sure that, in the course of our very important legislative work, we are never again called upon to rapidly approve a government bill to meet needs and achieve goals. We condemn that approach.

Even so, we support the bill because we would never abandon thousands of workers whose EI benefits will come to an end tomorrow morning and who will be left without an income to make it through this crisis.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member her opinion on the role of the opposition in the House of Commons.

The NDP thinks that Bill C-24 should include a provision on extending EI sickness benefits. In my opinion, it is our duty as politicians and members of the opposition to look for opportunities to push the government to include such measures.

Yesterday I presented an amendment to this bill in committee, which the chair ruled out of order because of a monarchist tradition here in Canada requiring royal assent. I think that tradition does not serve the interests of democracy. It is perfectly reasonable for an opposition politician to push the government, even if that means upsetting the prerogatives of the Crown a bit, in order to advance a good measure that would benefit Canadians.

My colleague chose to vote against the amendment and I would like her to say a few words about the role of the opposition and the degree to which we should look for opportunities and work—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

Order. I have to give the member the opportunity to respond.

The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his pertinent question on a topic I want to address.

Yesterday in committee, I heard someone say that the job of the opposition is to oppose, but that is not how we see it. If that were true, we would essentially be constrained. The opposition's job is to suggest solutions and a vision, and to ensure that bills have every chance to be passed in the best possible way. I also want to bring up the use of the word “opportunity”. There is opportunity, and then there is opportunism.

Yesterday, at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, I did not vote against the NDP's amendment, since it was ruled inadmissible, but I did think it was opportunistic. The NDP's amendment was an opportunistic attempt to build up political credibility that it had lost, maybe, using a bill that had a different objective. As I said, however, the amendment was inadmissible, so I did not vote against it.

As I said yesterday, I voted on the opportunity to strengthen Bill C-24 so that the House could pass it the following morning and extend the EI regular benefit period to 50 weeks.