Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon, colleagues, and thank you to our presenters this afternoon.
Mr. Sansfaçon, thanks for coming back. I'm so, so sorry about the tragic loss of Émilie.
Mr. Gourde, thanks for bringing this forward. I appreciate your passion. Certainly in the House I always look forward to seeing you speak.
For the record, I want to state that I'm really happy that I can see all parties around this table advocating for increased EI benefits. That is really very refreshing to see. We will be implementing the 26 weeks by the end of this year, which will help about 120,000 additional Canadians.
All of us around this horseshoe have stories from our constituency offices about the calls we get. I talked to my team this afternoon. Jeannette Arsenault is the person who handles most of my constituency work. I asked her to share with me some of the calls she gets and some of the responses she has to give. Some of these Canadians work all their lives; they get sick, and they receive 15 weeks of EI. We've had some people basically be told that, well, you're going to have to go on social assistance. That is horrifying. We've had some people refuse treatments because they couldn't afford to go on EI sick leave. We're also entering an era of long COVID, when more and more Canadians are going to need more than 15 weeks.
In your opinion, Mr. Gourde, in general, what are some of the greatest challenges employees face regarding access to EI sickness benefits?