Mr. Speaker, what is clear is the number of self-employed Canadians who actually need the bill and it is the reason we brought the bill forward. It was a commitment by the government, a commitment by the Prime Minister and a promise made to self-employed Canadians, because we believe that self-employed Canadians should not have to choose between family and their businesses.
Self-employed Canadians include small business owners, farmers, construction workers, professionals, realtors and those who have small businesses at home. More important, according to Statistics Canada, from 1976 to 2008, the number of self-employed men in Canada roughly doubled from 873,000 to over 1.7 million, but the number of self-employed women nearly tripled over the same period, going from some 300,000 to over 900,000.
The bill would help Canadians across all of Canada, and especially help women to balance work and family.