Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague and friend from Alberta, who I have the pleasure of sitting on the finance committee with and who I have also worked with extensively over the last few months in the Kurdish friendship group.
I wish to speak to the amendment as well as provide some thoughts on this bereavement leave. I have spoken to the member several times about this recommendation. It is an issue that is very important to many Canadians. However, I want to ask him for clarification. Currently, if a situation arises where a perinatal child passes away, the mother is permitted to take up to 17 weeks of leave. My understanding is that the amendment would reduce that to 12 weeks and would also apply to fathers. It would be unfortunate if the unintended consequence of this sort of policy, and we spoke about this at committee, was that mothers could potentially see the time they were given to recover and get support from family and friends reduced from the current 17 weeks to 12 weeks.
I do not believe that is the intended purpose of the amendment and what was debated at the finance committee. Therefore, I would ask my friend to provide clarity.