Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intent of Bill C-44 and the Liberals will in fact be supporting it as well.
I cannot help but recognize the minister's change of heart because when Liberals made a similar policy announcement, her comment was that there were other options for people trying to care for their loved ones, including the fact that “Most employees do have vacation leave that they can use”. That was her comment last year.
It is strange that we are having this debate today and then having a technical briefing tonight, but at least there is going to be a briefing and this bill will go to committee. This impacts maybe 6,000 Canadians, but the changes to the EI working while on claim provision impacts about 850,000, and those changes never went to committee.
This is a better way to do it, to shed light on it and find out about any unintended consequences. Does the minister not think that if we had also done this with the changes made to the working while on claim provision, we would not have the sort of mess we now have with low-income earners?