Madam Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to talk a bit about the folks I have heard from across the country who are experiencing long-term symptoms of COVID. This is not unique to Canada. It is happening all over the world. People who appear to have recovered from their COVID infection then get different kinds of recurring symptoms. They can be quite debilitating. They are not very predictable. They get in the way of people holding down a job.
In some other countries, they are starting to begin work by assembling professionals together in clinics to try to get a better handle on this condition and understand better how it works, but also to legitimize the condition so it can be recognized by insurance companies, for example, which have also been resisting recognition of this.
The EI sick benefit right now is the best way to accommodate these folks and ensure their new, novel and debilitating condition does not become the cause of their financial ruin. I am mystified as to why that is not in here, given the widespread political support that measure already enjoys in the House of Commons.