Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague and, perhaps above all, say hello to my grandson, Jonathan, who is outside the House, although I was unaware of the fact.
The bill I introduced today is clear; it cancels the two-week waiting period. People should not be penalized, as is the case for those who have a trade.
Let us use the example of someone who is learning a trade, working for an employer and, finally, is required to take courses at a community college. While that person attends the community college to acquire journeyman papers, he suddenly loses two weeks of wages. This makes no sense whatsoever. Employment insurance is there to help people and allow them to have an income when they are not working.
Now, it has gone beyond that. People who want to upgrade their skills, something that will be good for the employer and for everyone else, is penalized because of the two-week waiting period. Many people no longer want to learn a trade because of the loss of income.
My bill specifies that this is for everybody. Even if someone loses his job, he should not be penalized. We are not talking about someone who has quit his job, left it voluntarily, but someone who has been told by his employer that there is no more work, that he should not show up the following week. Why should his family suffer? It is not the employee who is abusing the system, it is the employer. There is quite simply no more work.
This is why my bill is important. I think the government recognizes this, judging by what it did during the emergency in Toronto; in that instance, the government cancelled the two-week waiting period, because people do need to have money coming in. I have always held that when someone loses his job, it does not matter whether he is in New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia or Ontario.
That is why it is important to cancel the two-week period by passing this bill, so that this program will really work for workers.