Mr. Speaker, my question is for the hon. member for Beaches—East York.
I have been listening to the member. She said the program takes away the rights of women to qualify for EI because 80% of the women work. According to a Statistics Canada study, about 32% of women qualified for EI. I agree with her.
She has been a member of the House for a long time. She said the Liberals did good things when they were in government. However, they were the government that cut employment insurance in 1996 and put the number of hours to qualify for sick leave at 700 hours. Finally, it went down to 600 hours.
For the new person coming in, it was 910 hours. That is the reason why at one point in time over 70% of people, men and women, working people, who wanted to qualify for EI used to get it. However, the Liberal government cut employment insurance and brought up the number of hours they needed to qualify. I would like to hear her comments on that.
Personally, I introduced a bill in the House for 360 hours, and the Liberals voted against it.