Thank you.
I'm glad to hear this is an issue that's addressed in this committee. I'll pay attention next time because my bill failed during consideration in the Senate. When Parliament is prorogued, the parliamentary session ends and all bills die even if they've passed through all previous stages.
In discussing the Prime Minister's decision to prorogue Parliament, you have to understand that it was based on the principle of ministerial responsibility. As my colleagues Mr. Simms and Mr. Long said so well, the government was dealing with a new situation and all circumstances had changed.
When we came back after the election in 2019, we all wanted to get going and implement our campaign platforms, our ideas and the projects we had started during the first parliamentary session. However, although we would have liked to continue our work, we were faced with a major crisis.
As all my colleagues know, we were in total lockdown in March of last year. We couldn't hold in‑person meetings because we didn't know how contagious the virus was or what the contamination factors were. It became very clear over the ensuing days and weeks that we were in the midst of a crisis.
We weren't yet using the Zoom platform at the time. We communicated via FaceTime, Skype and email. Constituents called my office for help. The health crisis was one thing, but the financial crisis was another. That much was obvious.
Since we didn't have tests yet, people had to stay at home as soon as they experienced minor cold symptoms or symptoms similar to those of COVID‑19. Staying at home when you don't have sick leave can be a serious problem. So people called our offices on that subject. We all received those calls.
We discussed that amongst ourselves, and members from all political parties called the experts, senior officials and our team every day for information and to report what they had seen on the ground. As my colleagues said, we were at war with an invisible enemy.
I'm very proud of my experience. I've worked in banking and financial planning, but I was also a social worker.
So I was very sensitive to the fact that people were making essential decisions about both their health and their financial situations.
The accessibility of a website can cause stress and it's already stressful in normal circumstances. We were particularly struck by the case of a single father who had a job at a restaurant but couldn't go to work because he had a child to take care of. He looked for another job and dealt with the employment insurance system, which obviously isn't designed to address that kind of emergency.
With all due respect for the people who work in it, the employment insurance system was created as a measure of last not first resort. That's why there are so many obstacles, criteria, questions and evidence that must be provided before claimants can receive employment insurance benefits.
I'm very proud that we all came together around one incredible idea. Six weeks earlier, the idea that we could do what we did with the CRA would have been unthinkable. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to suggest it.
Given my work experience, I have a lot of respect for what the CRA did and for the fact that it was able to use its IT system to put money in the pockets…