Mr. Speaker, my colleague for Edmonton Riverbend has been absolutely exemplary in terms of this private member's bill. When people watch question period, they often get a very false sense of what politicians do, who we are and the way law-making works. This bill is a tremendous example of how people can cross party lines, work together and create a good piece of legislation. It is an important testament to how committees of the House work. It is an important testament to how the Minister of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour can work with a member who sponsored a private bill, and how people from all parties can combine to improve that bill.
I want to thank the member for Edmonton Riverbend because he never made this a bill about himself. He never made this a Conservative bill. He made this a Canadian bill.
I want to thank the Minister of Labour who worked so closely with us, in terms of understanding that when a private member's bill comes to Parliament, members should not reject it because it comes from somebody from a different party, but rather should work with that member to see how we can create better legislation.
I also want to thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona, who has been a constant champion of this issue and who is always a pleasure to work with.
I would also like to thank the member for Thérèse-De Blainville, a colleague with whom we can always work to improve legislation.
Today, we are studying a good bill, one that will meet the needs of Canadians across the country.
The member's original bill talked about caregivers. Especially during this pandemic, we have all seen the heroic role of caregivers who, after seeing family members become sick with COVID, have taken care of them in a way that puts themselves at risk. We have seen people take caregiving leave for years to help family members with cancer, heart conditions or other illnesses that are profoundly difficult to deal with. These people are heroes. The idea that our current law would send them right back to work, in the week when the person who they were caring for died, seems heartless. The member listened to groups across the country who said people need more time when a loved on we are taking care of dies. People not only need to plan a funeral or, if one is Jewish, to perhaps have a shiva, but to take care of the will and consoling other loved ones like children who, maybe for the first time, have experienced death. People need more time psychologically to deal with this before going back to work.
After speaking to the Minister of Labour, she and I agreed that this was an incredible idea, but it should apply to more Canadians. People who have been on bereavement leave up until now have five days, three of which are paid and two of which are unpaid, to deal with a death of an immediate family member. That is not enough. When somebody who is so close to a person passes away, that person needs more than five days to deal with all of the things surrounding death.
My dad passed away last year after having COVID and then having a stroke. For the first time in my life, I had to deal with things like going with my mom to purchase a burial plot, to arrange a funeral, to make sure that my brother who is in Toronto could get back to Montreal for the funeral, to make sure that the will was notarized and in a place that we could access, and to deal with bank accounts and all kinds of things. While I am not really in a job where I can take time off, it would always be nice to know that I could. I sympathize so much with those incredible groups that the member for Edmonton Riverbend brought to the committee to talk about this issue.
When someone has a sudden death in the family or while taking care of a loved one, they need more time. The end result was that we talked to the member for Edmonton Riverbend and we talked to our colleagues in the other parties. What we decided is that everyone should get 10 days, whether for loss of an immediate family member under bereavement leave or whether someone was on compassionate care leave or leave related to critical illness in terms of taking care of someone. Everybody should get those 10 days.
The HUMA did excellent work. Everyone talked to one another and everyone collaborated. Our chairman, the member for Charlottetown, did a fantastic job chairing the meeting and we were able to bring a bill to Parliament that deserves unanimous support. It is a bill that should get to the Senate as quickly as possible and it is one that should be adopted by this Parliament before it finishes, whenever that happens.
I am in strong support of getting the bill to the Senate as soon as possible. Again, I want to thank all the members who restored my faith in the way Parliament can work.
Once again, I would like to thank my colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville, my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, the member for Charlottetown and especially the member for Edmonton Riverbend, who did an extraordinary job with this bill.