Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that in Welland these are absolutely important benefits. When this is passed, and hopefully it will, the fact that one can get compassionate benefits, can access sick benefits and can get parental and maternity benefits is hugely important to those folks who never before were able to get them.
My colleague from Scarborough Centre at one point talked about the fact that they could buy insurance, and I appreciate that. However, quite often individual entrepreneurs working in the home are unable to afford insurance premiums to insure themselves in case they get sick, and a lot of women who become self-employed work from their own houses. Therefore, what do they do when they get sick?
As we know, if they happen to have young children, mothers get sick more often than anyone else because young kids bring everything under the sun home. That is the nature of being a youngster. They go to school and everybody else shares. They share the hat, they share a cold, they share a cough. I see my hon. member has a cold and hopefully he will not share that with the rest us.
At the end of the day, that is what happens. We need to ensure they get the benefits. They deserve to have those benefits. They have a right. We ought to ensure it happens.