Mr. Speaker, at the last negotiations with the Government of Canada, the premier of Quebec, Lucien Bouchard, never wanted any change in parental leave available under the employment insurance program.
Only one province in Canada offers a program of preventive withdrawal from the workplace, and that is the province of Quebec. When he was a Canadian MP here in Ottawa, Lucien Bouchard never did anything about such program for expectant mothers.
Today, the Government of Canada has doubled the duration of parental leave, effective December 31, 2000, while Lucien Bouchard wants his own program, but only in the year 2002. This is a program that will $10 million to workers, $14 million to employers and $20 million to the self-employed.
The federal government has been administering parental leave for close to 30 years. Thanks to those years of experience, all of the mechanisms are in place to ensure that parents benefit from this improved federal program, starting December 31 of this year, not the year 2002.
What is essential today is that Canada and Quebec work together to find the real solution to making more resources available to mothers.