moved for leave to introduce Bill C-446, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (insurable employment).
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce a bill whose objective is to correct a serious injustice affecting a great majority of students.
This bill aims at allowing full time students at secondary, college and university levels to decide whether or not they want to pay employment insurance premiums.
Many of these students do not work enough hours to qualify for the program. Thus, they pay premiums for nothing because they cannot get the benefits they would normally be entitled to if the system were based the number of weeks, instead of the number of hours of work.
Through this bill, students would be able to pay premiums if they considered it necessary to do so, or not to pay them if they thought they would not work enough hours to qualify. In this way, we would not deprive students who are able to get enough hours of work from being entitled to the benefits of the system.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)