Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With respect to creating fairness in the Employment Insurance Act, I would suggest that if the government were actually interested in creating fairness, what it would have done is look at the cases in which people didn't qualify for an extension of the qualifying period or benefit period and make changes there. The case that the proposer of the bill brought forward would have been a really good example of changes to the Employment Insurance Act that would have benefited that particular person.
Of course, I'm not going to go over the extensive testimony that we heard from Elizabeth Fry and John Howard about why it's important to maintain this section of the act.
Despite the fact that this amendment would actually change an oversight in the initially proposed legislation, the NDP will not be supporting the amendment because we do not support the principles of the bill.
So although this would correct an error in the bill, we will not be supporting the amendment.