Thanks to the member for that series of questions. I'll try to do the best I can.
Obviously for humanitarian crises, we're not just talking about climate change. There may be other situations that arise: famine, natural disasters, or war. These, of course, are situations that produce a number of parentless children.
I think one of the important reasons for examining how we do adoption is to reconcile... I shouldn't say reconcile, probably, but renovate. It is to renovate, ultimately, how we do adoption here in Canada to accommodate the reality that these are increasing trends. Is the current system nimble enough, if you will, to respond, and are the supports sufficient to allow that to happen?
I encourage us to think proactively about these situations rather than reactively. I think we did a fair job with respect to Haiti, but that was responding to a situation. How do we look ahead now, knowing these situations will occur in the future? Can we create a system, together with our partners at the provincial and territorial level, that will allow us to respond nimbly?
The other issue, of course—and I think I made mention of it in my comments—is that obviously, as a priority, you want to see children placed with families in their own countries, but where that can't happen, can our system accommodate bringing them into families here who would like to adopt?
With respect to the other issue, I'm getting at an equivalent benefit to maternity. I think the government has made a step forward in the sense that the self-employed now have the opportunity to opt into parental maternity benefits. The next obvious question that has to be asked, both for the self-employed and for those who are not self-employed, is: should we be looking at some additional benefit that would, through special EI benefits, recognize that there are significant challenges to adoptive parents and children in forming attachment? They need sufficient time and means to do that, in my opinion.
I think that was an area that, as I heard in the speeches at second reading, there was a unanimous thought around. I suspect that will emerge as a recommendation from this committee in whatever report comes out, but there are real and significant challenges, both for parents and for children, in forming those attachments in a situation of adoption. For biological children, some of that attachment begins during the pregnancy, so you have—