As Mr. Lobb mentioned, mine is a very rural riding, with a lot of farmers. In fact, over half of our economy comes from agriculture and agrifood. We have a lot of small businesses and people who are self-employed, and they are very pleased to see this coming.
I've been hearing from people right across the country. They're saying that this has been a long time coming and they've echoed the word that's in the title of this bill: it's about “fairness”. Many of them have been in a situation where they've been deemed to be self-employed, and they have a lot of employees who go off on maternity leave or who get paid time through EI while they are on an extended illness or due to injury. The owners, who are the ones creating the jobs, don't have that opportunity, so they've been very, very pleased.
The response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've been really quite pleasantly surprised by how well people are taking to this. I hope that's reflected in the take-up rates.
But it is voluntary. That was part of the commitment the Prime Minister made. He wasn't going to force people into it. It is voluntary and it's an opportunity.
Let's remember, too, that we really want to support the self-employed. Most of those people are classed as small businesses, and small and medium-sized businesses in this country create three out of every four new jobs. We want to make sure that the people who have that entrepreneurial spirit and who are willing to take some risks to grow their company and grow our economy get the supports they need, not just entrepreneurially, but on the family side as well.