Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Beech, for bringing forward this bill.
As a fellow NICU parent, I know it's a challenge you go through when all of a sudden you're carrying a child and you think everything's going well, and then you end up in a space where your child has challenges and needs medical assistance. On top of that, you're seeing the death of other kids in the NICU around you. At least, that was my circumstance when I went through it almost three years ago with my youngest son.
Until you're going through that space, I don't think most people would ever contemplate it, because most people don't imagine that they would lose a child, so they don't even know what steps to take. The fact that there are steps you have to take when you lose your child seems ludicrous to me.
I know my colleague Mr. Genuis has already talked about the amendment the Conservatives would like to move forward. If a royal recommendation was still possible, would you be open to the idea of amending the bill so that if a parent that had qualified for EI were to die, EI would be able to continue as if that parent had not died?
I understand that the royal recommendation is a whole other conversation, but I'm just trying to figure this out. As the sponsor of this bill, would that be something you would be willing to endeavour to do?