Bill No. 203 - Labour Standards Code (amended) - 3rd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, when this bill came to the floor of the Legislature, I told the member for Cole Harbour-Dartmouth that she would have my support and the support of our caucus. I wasn't able to be here to speak to it before, so I want to speak to it now.

So much has already been said that is so true and moving, but what I want to say is that this bill recognizes our humanity. We grieve. We love. We get sick. We are human beings, and all of these things happen to us. I think that this process is a great example of what happens when we have real life in this Chamber, when we're talking about real people and their real experiences and we're able to do that. I would suggest that for everything we discuss here, there are real people affected in their real lives.

I want to thank the member for bringing this forward. I do also want to acknowledge that we have so much work to do to make sure, particularly in a work environment, that we can show up as our whole selves and that we can live the lives that we need to live. This bill recognizes that we need to be able to grieve and be employed. But we also need to be able to eat and be employed, and we also need to be able to do a lot of other things.

This is at the heart of so much of the conversations we have with our constituents and with our families. My hope is that we can have more conversations like this in this Chamber where our debates and our decisions are not abstract, are not based on partisanship or theory but are based in reality.

This is a great example of how the reality of the fact that we all experience grief is impossible to deny, and the humanity of needing to recognize that in legislation is also impossible to deny. I thank the minister, and I thank the member for bringing this forward.