Right. I'm very sensitive to this issue, obviously, as I'm in a classroom. My students are always 22. Every year I get one year older and my students keep coming in and are 22, because I teach only fourth year.
I'm very conscious of this whole “generation screwed” thing that's been started by the professor at UBC. Now I'm answering your question, because I have certainly argued that in a large number of areas in our economy, we boomers run the system. We control the system, and we've tilted the playing field to make sure we're looked after, not because we're trying to hurt them deliberately, but because we're looking after ourselves first.
To answer your question in this instance, if you come down with a serious illness, or you're in a car accident, or you're bicycling or doing something and you're really banged up and you're going to be off work for two or three months, a young person who has been in the public service for only five, six, or seven years simply would not have the sick leave.
Why I'm so strong on this—and this has nothing to do with party politics or partisanship—is that people don't realize that sick leave is open-ended. Once the insurance company says you're off sick, you're off sick until you get better. If you run out of sick leave and you're still sick, then they roll you over onto long-term sick leave. I've seen this at my own university, by the way: you go on short-term sick leave, you run out, and then they flip you onto long-term sick leave because you're still ill.