Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, everyone, for being here.
Please don't take it personally, but my question actually is addressed to Ms. Eng and to Mr. Sangster and Ms. Baxter, because I am actually very proud of the fact that the Liberal Party has made a very significant announcement this morning about some very important things that the Liberal Party would do when it actually forms government.
One of them, in particular, is a proposal for a family care EI benefit that would extend the six-week provisions now in place to a full six months, but with significant flexibility within the six months. It would be built similarly to the current parental leave benefit. This would allow an extremely large number of caregivers who are caring for ill and aging family members to provide the care that is so desperately needed without having to quit their jobs. We know this from submissions by entities like CARP, like the palliative association, and very many organizations who have been saying this is desperately needed. So I'm very proud of that.
The other part of the announcement was that we would provide a family care tax benefit. This would be a tax-free benefit modelled on the child tax benefit, which would provide up to $1,350 a year for those same people, the people who are giving care to family members in situations where now they do so and sacrifice income they would otherwise be able to gain, but for the time and effort put into caring for family members.
Needless to say, we're extremely proud of this. We understand this is something that is very desperately needed in society, and I would love to hear your comments, Ms. Eng, Ms. Baxter, and Mr. Sangster. If anyone else has any thoughts, please jump in. But I would love to hear your thoughts on how this is going to improve the lives of many people.