Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
As I stated at the outset, I have the utmost respect for you and have repeated that consistently through the finance committee. Mr. Fragiskatos took objection to the reality, which is that the government's withholding a royal recommendation puts you in an uncomfortable position of having to rule out of order improvements that would make a big difference in people's lives. I would have to disagree with Mr. Fragiskatos that this is something that's acceptable. The government should be walking the talk and should be accepting these improvements, which would make such a difference in people's lives.
That is also the case for amendments NDP-20 and NDP-22. I'll present both of them together. We have heard, through the course of the witnesses that we had and the testimony, that the 26 weeks is simply not enough time to get through illness. This is from Liberal witnesses who came forward and when opposition members asked them, “Is 26 weeks sufficient?” these Liberal witnesses—witnesses called by the Liberal Party—said that, no, actually it would be much more important to have a full year of benefit support when people are going through critical illnesses, such as cancer. While they are recovering, the time, the requirements and the demands on people when they are trying to get through these health crises are enormous, so when Liberal witnesses brought forward to our committee agree with the opposition that we should be looking to 50 weeks, I think that is a fundamentally important recommendation that we as a committee should uphold.
That is why both NDP-20 and NDP-22 have been put forward. Also, as you know, Mr. Chair, the labour movement nationally and a variety of other organizations are all calling for this as well. This is very germane to another measure within the budget implementation act that fell far short of what's actually needed, and now is the time for us to rectify that error.