Certainly in the proposed regulation we are talking about maternity and parental arrangements and we're talking about justified absences from a House sitting. My point was that it's not the same type of leave that you would see an employee take, where the employee is not performing the functions of the job during that leave. That really is to answer questions about comparing this to the leave an employee takes, the length of leave and the benefits for employees who are on maternity leave, parental leave and so on. Does the member's so-called parental leave from this type of regime compare favourably or not?
My point is it's difficult and perhaps not the best way to compare those two things, because the member, unlike the employee, always continues to be a member. What we're talking about here is not the member being on leave from his or her role as a member, but it's the member having a justifiable reason for being absent from the chamber for a certain period of time. The member continues to be the member and continues to have all the functions.