Bill C-222

Relieving Grieving Parents of an Administrative Burden Act (Evan's Law)

An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code (death of a child)

This enactment amends the Employment Insurance Act to provide that a person to whom employment insurance benefits are payable to care for a newborn child or a child placed with them for the purpose of adoption remains eligible to receive those benefits even if the child dies during the benefit period. It also amends the Canada Labour Code to extend the period of bereavement leave to which an employee is entitled in the event of the death of a child of the employee or of their spouse or common-law partner.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, in relation to Bill C-222, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code on the death of a child.

I would like to acknowledge the work of all members of the committee in getting the bill back to the House. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

Requirement of a Royal Recommendation for Bill C-222—Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I also would like to read a second ruling.

In my statement of October 20, 2025, on the management of Private Members’ Business, I expressed concern that Bill C-222, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code (death of a child), appeared to infringe on the Crown’s financial prerogative. At the time, I encouraged members who wished to make arguments about whether or not the bill requires a royal recommendation to do so.

While no formal arguments were submitted to the Chair, the sponsor of the bill, the member for Burnaby-Nord—Seymour, in his opening intervention during debate at second reading on October 24, 2025, stated his view that the bill requires a royal recommendation and that he was working with the responsible ministers to acquire it. Likewise, during his right of reply on January 29, 2026, the member again acknowledged the need for a royal recommendation and raised the possibility that this may occur following committee stage.

In assessing whether the bill requires a royal recommendation, the Chair is guided by section 18.9 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, fourth edition, which states:

A royal recommendation fixes not only the allowable charge but also its objects, purposes, conditions and qualifications. For this reason, a royal recommendation is required not only in the case where money is being appropriated, but also in the case where the authorization to spend for a specific purpose is significantly altered.

Bill C-222 seeks to ensure that parents who qualify for parental benefits under sections 23 and 152.05 of the Employment Insurance Act continue to do so for the period set out in the act if their child passes away during the benefit period. It also amends sections 206 and 206.1 of the Canada Labour Code to ensure that an employee entitled to maternity or parental leave remains entitled to that leave if their child passes away during the leave.

The Chair is of the view that the bill extends the conditions under which an individual is eligible to access parental benefits, and that this in turn has the potential to result in additional charges on the consolidated revenue fund. In light of these facts, and given similar precedents with respect to bills that would have extended the length of the benefit period for employment insurance, the Chair must agree that the bill requires a royal recommendation.

The House can proceed to vote on the bill at second reading later this week, but a royal recommendation must be provided before it can proceed to a final vote in the House at the third reading stage, unless the bill is amended in the meantime in a manner that removes the need for a royal recommendation.

I thank all members for their attention.

Corrections and Conditional Release Act

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

Madam Speaker, As one of the parliamentarians present in the House on Fridays, I can attest that the last hour of debate is moving.

Last week, we debated Bill C‑222, introduced by the member for Burnaby North—Seymour, and it was quite emotional. The bill proposed amending the Employment Insurance Act with respect to maternity leave in cases where a parent is grieving the loss of a child. It proposed that benefits continue to be paid so that the parent could have time to grieve instead of having to return to work too soon. It was very moving. Conservative colleagues who had experienced the loss of a child gave heartfelt testimonials.

We know that a private member's bill is often based on something that affects us personally, something meaningful, something we want to change or connect with on a more human level. This is what Bill C‑222 was all about.

Today, we are once again faced with a bill that affects us as parliamentarians and as human beings, because it appeals to our empathy and our humanity. Losing a loved one to violent murder is a terrible tragedy. I cannot even imagine being able to overcome such grief. Our minds immediately turn to finding solutions. How can we put a stop to this? How can we ensure that others do not have to go through what we are going through? How can we improve the system? How can we put an end to this suffering?

Often, an MP who is truly listening to their community, such as the member for Edmonton Griesbach, will introduce a bill that supports families in need. That is, if they are lucky enough to be randomly selected. I understand that. It is fundamental, and it is one of the beautiful aspects of this Parliament. As members of Parliament, we have the opportunity to introduce bills that are meaningful to us.

When my colleague from Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj spoke earlier, I admired his eloquence. He always knows how to present the pros and cons of a bill in a very thorough manner, without judgment. He uses facts and figures that allow us to improve our understanding and knowledge. Like many of my colleagues here, I am not a lawyer. What I understood from his speech is that we must maintain a balance between listening to families and listening to prisoners, who have rights under certain laws.

I want to say to the families who have lost a loved one in such a horrific way that we empathize with them and that the parole system needs to improve. We think that some parts of the process could be significantly improved and that there are ways to prevent families from experiencing and reliving the trauma every time the offender applies for parole.

I hope the debates will continue so that we can fully explore all of the bill's implications.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the member for Winnipeg North inviting my colleagues to join us in friendly Manitoba. I look forward to that debate taking place on a university campus. Maybe they will come out to Brandon, to my constituency. It would be good to get a few Winnipeg Liberals outside the Perimeter Highway every once in a while to understand the needs of rural Manitobans. I would be glad to take the member back to my alumni university and have him listen to some of the constituents out there, who I am proud to represent, and the challenges they find not just with the Liberal Party's conduct overall, but also particularly with respect to ethics.

It is in fact shocking that the entire argument from the Liberals today about this report and the subsequent amendment coming from the ethics committee is that they want to talk about the fact that this is not a priority for Canadians. I am shocked. I heard a lot about the Liberal ethical challenges on the doorsteps of Brandon—Souris during the last campaign. I am surprised the member for Winnipeg North did not. Perhaps I need to do some doorknocking in his constituency as well, just to remind them of the exact record of the Liberal government.

I would like to note, before I get started, that I plan to split my time with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. I understand the members opposite will be very excited to hear from him, particularly given the new situation and the agreement we just came to.

We talk about a lack of accountability and credibility. I asked the member for Winnipeg North this question earlier. I am still struck by the fact that his only response to me, perhaps suggesting the Liberals have a credibility issue on these topics, is to go back and talk about things that happened 20 years ago. Maybe he is accurate on that, maybe he is not, but that is the big comeback, that the bar is set at a certain level so it is fine if we are just as low. That is not really much reassurance for Canadians who have a deep concern about the significant ethical failings of the Liberal government over the last nine and a half or 10 years. Many of those members are still in the front two or three benches advising the Prime Minister on policy issues, but that he should somehow not be held to a standard, that we should somehow not be improving things in this country is a bit baffling. That is the only argument the Liberals have. I digress, but here we are.

We moved this amendment. I think it is pretty reasonable. The third report is coming from the Standing Committee on Ethics. We are asking for some witnesses to come to have a discussion to better address the concerns posed by the unprecedented extent of the Prime Minister's corporate and shareholding interests “provided that, for the purposes of this order...the following be ordered to appear as witnesses”. I do not think it is really that unreasonable, nor do I think most Canadians would think it is really all that unreasonable, for the Prime Minister's successor, as well as a number of his current staff, to come to explain exactly how this blind trust works and what exactly the implications are for his finances when he makes decisions.

It is not that these people coming to committee would be holding up the work of government. That is a convenient excuse for the Liberals, who have dithered away, as my colleague from Calgary said, the first weeks of this Parliament. We passed Bill C-5 because we agree it is finally time for the Liberals to get something built in this country after 10 years of getting nothing done. Tax cuts are always a good thing, so we voted in favour of that too.

The Liberals looked around like they did not know what to do for the rest of the session, as there was no other legislation ready to go. What were they doing when they prorogued for months at a time to run around and find a new leader to salvage the sinking ship of their political party? They did not think of coming up with any new ideas, other than two Conservative platform ideas, to put into legislation.

We came back here in September, and it is the same story. We have been talking about crime for eight years and the fact the Liberals' bail system has destroyed community safety across the country. It took them another month and a half to get a bill together. Where were they all summer? Now they are going to tell us that we are holding up that debate and holding up getting those bills passed.

Bill C-222 from the member for Oxford has been on the books for a month. The government could have passed it already. The bill could be over in the other place. It might have even received royal assent by now if the Liberals were actually serious about getting something done with respect to crime. It is baffling to the vast majority of Canadians, and certainly the ones I represent, that the Liberals' whole argument is “Oh my gosh, the Conservatives are really holding stuff up.” No, there was legislation on the books regarding these issues, and the Liberals did not pass it. In fact they did not prioritize it, and they voted against a motion that would have expedited the passage of it.

Now we want to talk about ethics, because there is potentially the most conflicted Prime Minister in Canadian history sitting in office. Maybe he is and maybe he is not. We would like to have a discussion about it, and the Liberals are going to tell Canadians that it is a waste of time. I do not know. I guess we will go to the doors sooner rather than later and have that discussion with Canadian voters, and I am curious to hear. I am not sure that the feedback is going to be quite what the Liberals think it is going to be, despite their set talking point.

I am not sure whether the individuals listed in the proposed amendment to the motion have already texted the Liberal MPs, saying they do not want to come to the committee and asking them to say whatever they can to make their appearance not happen, or whether this is just standard operating procedure for the Liberals.

I pointed out in a question earlier that the members opposite stood up for years, debate after debate, and defended Justin Trudeau, saying there was nothing to see on the WE scandal, that he had done nothing wrong. They were shelling out contracts to WE. They hired the prime minister's family members so they could make some money. The Liberals said there was nothing to see, until of course it all came to light that the Liberals had actually done something wrong, and then they were pretty quiet about it.

Then we got into the Aga Khan's island, and there was nothing to see here; the prime minister was a wonderful guy with nice hair, and there was nothing wrong. That was until it came out that he actually should not have accepted a vacation worth several hundreds of thousand of dollars, on a private island, from a family friend who wanted stuff from the government. Then the Liberals were pretty quiet about it.

Then we got into SNC-Lavalin and the government's actually interfering in the prosecution of a private corporation in this country, full of Liberal insiders and friends. There was nothing to see here; the prime minister had done absolutely nothing wrong, but the Liberals fired two of their colleagues over it. Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott got turfed; they bit the dust for Liberal defence mechanisms to defend the prime minister and his office. Then of course it came out that the Liberals had breached ethical activity in those instances.

We want to know this: Is this now the Liberals' falling into the same old habits of defending the Prime Minister, obfuscating the picture and trying to hide as much as possible, or does the new Prime Minister, the member for Nepean, actually have nothing to hide? Canadians deserve clarity on that, and it is not an unreasonable ask for Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois, or anybody else in this country, to be making.

The Liberals can continue to stand up and say this is a total waste of time, but it will reflect poorly on them in the future, just as their defence of their actions in the WE scandal, in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, in the Aga Khan island cover-up, in the green slush fund cover-up and in all of the Liberal cover-ups has reflected badly on them in the days that have followed since they said, “nothing to see here”.

It is a very simple ask from Conservatives. In fact the proposed amended motion actually sets out timelines. If we need to plan the government House business for the Liberals, we have set out the timelines for when this can be done, in the proposed amended motion, so they can plan their legislative agenda accordingly, because, Lord knows, they have not done it yet. There has not been anything from the Liberals. It took them all year to announce a November 4 budget, three-quarters of the way through a fiscal year, so we have set out the timeline for them.

Let us get this through, get the witnesses called to committee and then get on with solving the rest of the Liberal challenges that are facing Canadians.

Private Members' Business

[The Speaker, Francis Scarpaleggia]

In advance of the House's consideration of Private Members' Business, the Chair wishes to make a short statement concerning private members' bills and the royal recommendation.

Members will be aware that constitutional and procedural constraints govern certain financial matters in proposed legislation. Any bill proposing to spend public funds for a new and distinct purpose must be accompanied by a royal recommendation, which may only be transmitted to the House by a minister of the Crown.

Any private member's bill that requires a royal recommendation must receive it prior to the putting of the question at third reading. Otherwise, the Speaker will not put the question, and the bill would then be dropped from the Order Paper.

The Chair has examined the items in the order of precedence. I wish to inform the House that, on initial review, one bill appears to touch upon the Crown's financial prerogative: Bill C‑222, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code with regard to the death of a child, standing in the name of the member for Burnaby North—Seymour.

I encourage members who would like to make arguments regarding whether this or any other bill in the order of precedence requires a royal recommendation to do so at an early opportunity.

Furthermore, the Chair would like to remind members of the rules governing debate on private members' business items. For motions and bills at the second reading stage, the debate proceeds as follows.

The member moving the motion may speak for up to 15 minutes to start debate, followed by five minutes for questions and comments.

Any other member may speak to the motion for up to 10 minutes, with no period for questions and comments.

Finally, just before the Chair puts the question to the House, the member moving the motion also has a five-minute right of reply to conclude the debate.

If members have any questions about Private Members' Business, they can consult the table officers or contact the Private Members' Business Office.

I thank members for their attention.