This is what workers tell me every week. They think that because they pay into employment insurance, they will all have access to benefits if they need them.
With this in mind, have you, in your respective branches, ever considered the possibility of setting up a government program that wouldn't be funded from the employment insurance program, but that would provide these special benefits to bereaved parents to help them, whether they qualify for EI or not?
At the start of your presentation, you spoke about the primary purpose of the employment insurance program, which is to deal with work situations, while, as you said, special benefits reconcile work and personal responsibilities.
To manage these situations that affect people's personal lives and their experiences outside of work, shouldn't there be government programs dedicated to these people and shouldn't we let the employment insurance program focus on its primary mission, which is to help people who find themselves unemployed after losing their jobs? Because they contribute to the employment insurance fund every week, these people think that this social safety net will be there for them when they lose their jobs.
There are more and more people in the labour market, both members of the couple are in the labour market. So we have other responsibilities: we have to face these new realities of the labour market. Shouldn't there be government programs dedicated to special benefits?