Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the committee on the work it did in preparing the report, which I believe was completed in May. The hon. member was a member of that committee and it covered a wide range of important topics.
In her presentation, I do not think the member referred to the issue of maternity leave. The committee made a recommendation to expand maternity leave to two years. I would like her to comment on how the committee arrived at that issue.
In my riding, which includes mainly small communities and towns, a couple of towns have a population of about 130,000 but most of them are very small places, and a lot of small businesses engage women and men. For women or men to take maternity leave in those particular places, I am told that they need to train people. It is tough to get people to work on a contract basis for two years. When women, or men, come back after two years, they need to be retrained because a lot happens in two years.
There is no question that children need assistance in those early months and years, but the question I have for the member is whether the committee considered the balance that is required, particularly for small businesses, not the big governments of Canada and the provinces, the large municipalities and the large companies, but small businesses.