:
Good morning, everybody.
Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 26, 2016, the committee is commencing consideration of , an act respecting the development of a national maternity assistance program strategy and amending the Employment Insurance Act (maternity benefits).
Welcome, Mr. Gerretsen. Thank you for being here. We are going to jump right into it. We'll give you 10 minutes to speak, and then we'll follow that up with questions until noon, when we will suspend for a few moments.
Then we'll come back and meet with Employment and Social Development Canada, specifically Mr. Andrew Brown, who I believe is already here. Hello. We'll give Mr. Brown 10 minutes, with a series of questions for the rest of that hour.
Just before we get started, I want to welcome MP Pam Damoff to our committee. Thank you for filling in for Mr. Long.
Mr. Gerretsen, the next 10 minutes is yours, sir.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for having me and for taking the opportunity to discuss my private member's bill.
I also want to take a quick opportunity to introduce you to my assistant, Steven Patterson, who has been extremely helpful on this bill from the beginning. He was still a student in fourth year at Queen's University when he started working on this bill. He has recently informed me that he is going to be moving on to go to law school. I knew that I would lose him eventually, in the fall. I feel that he has just as much right to sit at this table today as I do.
I'll keep my remarks brief, Mr. Chair, to allow as much time as possible for answers to the committee's questions. I'll first explain my rationale for introducing this bill, and then I will contribute my ideas for possible amendments given some of the events that happened in yesterday's budget.
This bill was inspired by a constituent in my community named Melodie. That is where it all began. I'll remind you quickly of Melodie's story, which highlighted a gap in the EI system and ultimately inspired me to introduce this legislation.
Melodie is a welder in my community. In mid-2014 she became pregnant, and like many expectant mothers, she consulted with her medical practitioner to ensure that she was taking all the necessary steps to have a healthy pregnancy. Upon describing the hazardous nature of her work environment to her practitioner, Melodie was told that she could no longer continue welding during her pregnancy, as the functions of her job would be unsafe and pose a significant risk to her future child.
She reached out to her employer, a well-established and highly reputable shipbuilding firm in Kingston, but ultimately they were unable to provide reassignment or modify her duties in a way that would mitigate the risk. Forced to stop working, Melodie applied for and was granted EI sickness benefits.
There are a couple of problems with this, the first being that Melodie was pregnant, but not sick. The second problem was that these 15 weeks of benefits ran out long before Melodie was eligible to officially begin her maternity leave. For two and a half months Melodie waited to receive the maternity benefits she was entitled to. This income gap led to serious financial hardship and ultimately resulted in the loss of her home and significant personal distress.
When Melodie approached my office in early 2016, we researched the issue and found that the primary source of the problem was a rule under section 22 of the EI Act that requires that a woman, regardless of her circumstances, wait until eight weeks before her expected due date before she can start receiving maternity benefits.
For women like Melodie, who are employed in occupations where it is unsafe to work at the early stages of pregnancy, this restriction can lead to long periods with absolutely no income.
Melodie's story is why I put forward this legislation. I strongly believe that no woman should be put in the position that Melodie was. In Canada in 2017, no woman should have to choose between pursuing her dream job and starting a family.
Evidence shows that women are still grossly under-represented in skilled trades, construction, engineering, science, policing, and many other professions that would be affected by this bill. My goal with this bill is to address one of the barriers to entry for women who want to enter one of these so-called non-traditional jobs. We need to think about how to level the playing field so that women have an equal opportunity to participate in all sectors of the labour force.
Mr. Chair, I was pleased to see that in budget 2017 strong measures have been included to do exactly that. Specifically, yesterday's budget proposes to allow women to claim EI maternity benefits up to 12 weeks before their due date—up from the current standard of eight weeks—if they so choose. While there are some small differences between this measure and my bill, yesterday's proposed change introduces exactly the kind of flexibility that I have been advocating for with Bill .
I will now move to the second part of my remarks, which is to propose some amendments to my bill. In light of the changes proposed in budget 2017 and reflective of the fact that all members will have an opportunity to vote on that on its own, I would urge the committee to vote down the employment insurance provisions of Bill , found in clauses 6 and 7.
In addition, the parliamentary legal counsel recommended that the committee adopt amendments that would amend the preamble by deleting lines 19 to 23 on page 1 and an amendment that would change the title to “An Act respecting the development of a national maternity assistance program strategy”.
Today I am submitting these amendments to the committee. I can provide them to the chair who can distribute them to the analyst or clerk. These changes would leave the first part of the bill, the national strategy, unchanged. This part calls on the Minister of Employment to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that pregnancy is not a barrier to women's full and equal participation in all aspects of the labour force. To be honest, this has always been the most important part of this bill, as the changes to EI were only intended to be a first step, and not a final solution.
The strategy will give the government a mandate to engage in broad consultations and to consider more comprehensive and long-term solutions. It specifies timelines, a list of stakeholders to consult, and clause 3 lists five basic conditions the study must cover.
In hearing from experts, I believe these are all areas that could potentially be improved by the committee.
In closing, I want to reiterate why I feel having this debate and developing a strategy is so important. Many of the discussions about gender equality in the labour force have focused on including more women as doctors, lawyers, business leaders, and politicians. While well-intentioned, I think these conversations often neglect the fact that many women like Melodie want to be construction workers, electricians, mechanics, masons, carpenters, machinists, boilermakers, or welders, to name a few.
The national strategy proposed in Bill is an opportunity to further include these women in the conversation about gender equality.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, MP Gerretsen, for your bill.
I support the bill in principle. I do have a number of questions, though, starting with your suggestion that we delete clauses 6 and 7 of your bill because they appear to be redundant because of the announcements in the budget. Your bill was asking for 15 weeks. A pregnant woman qualifies for 15 weeks, and your bill was permitting that pregnant woman to use those 15 weeks however she sees fit, if she is employed in a high-risk vocation.
When I bounced this off constituents, off Canadians, what I heard was that each pregnancy is quite different. We have five children, and that's true. But if a woman feels her pregnancy is at risk, and she qualifies for those 15 weeks she could take eight weeks early, but you're saying allow them to take the whole 15 weeks if the pregnancy is at risk because they're in a high-risk vocation.
The women I'm hearing from are saying that if a pregnancy is at risk, allow the person to take the 15 weeks, whatever works best for them. If they qualify for 15 weeks, why would they not? Why would you have to be a forklift driver, a welder, or whatever? Let women choose.
You're suggesting you don't need the 15 weeks because the government's giving 12. Why wouldn't the government give 15 weeks if women qualify for 15 weeks? Why are they shorting the women by three weeks?
:
Thank you for the question.
Regardless, you are going to be entitled to your 15 weeks. That's established in the Employment Insurance Act. Right now, you can take only eight weeks prior to your due date, and the remaining seven weeks have to be taken after your due date. That's the way the current legislation is. My proposal is to give women the opportunity to take all 15 weeks prior to the due date if, as you described, they end up in those circumstances.
The government, through its budget, is proposing to allow 12 weeks instead of the 15 weeks. The reason why they chose to do that, in my opinion, was that a woman's due date might not actually be when she delivers. So if her due date is June 8 but she doesn't end up delivering until June 15, for example—I'm just using my own wife's experience—then she might end up running out, because she has taken her full 15 weeks before the date when she thought she was going to give birth, but she ends up giving birth a week later. This gives a bit of a buffer. That's just my interpretation of it.
You might also recall that the Speaker said that this bill would require a royal recommendation because its second part, in particular the part about EI, so this would avoid and mitigate that, or remove the offending conditions. I think this is a great compromise to eliminate the requirement for a royal recommendation and that it would support women, because they will get the increase from eight to 12 weeks. Then the study, which is the first and major part of the bill, will go to address a lot of the other questions you had, such as “Why aren't they getting more time?” Ultimately, you are correct. They should be receiving more time, in my opinion.
:
Thank you for your questions, Mr. Robillard. I am going to answer in English.
[English]
The main premise behind the entire bill from the beginning was always that the EI benefits and their flexibility be secondary to the employer's trying to accommodate reassignment for the individual.
It has always been the thought, and in different discussions that I've had and in various iterations of the bill, it was always the intent that the employer first try to find other accommodations. In this particular situation with my constituent, Melodie, she was unable to do that because her employer didn't have any other type of work for her to do.
To answer the first part of your question, yes, that was always the intention.
As for the second part of your question relating to the Quebec model, the strategy specifically asks that the study look at other provinces and other countries on how they deliver maternity benefits. The Quebec model is a very robust model that all of the other provinces could look towards for guidance and direction.
Yes, we spent some time looking at that model. A private member's bill is very limited in the sense that you can't introduce new spending, so we couldn't do a lot of the things that model does. However, we very much encourage the study to look at the Quebec model and other models throughout the world.
I want to begin by thanking my fellow member for introducing this bill.
Women now have their place in the labour force. We represent 50% of the population and thus 50% of workers. It is incumbent upon governments to implement measures so that women are not disadvantaged because they are the ones who bear children.
I am a mother of four children, and, as a Quebecer, I was able to take advantage of the province's preventive withdrawal program. Women should in no way be penalized in the workforce because of their pregnancy.
I'm someone who prefers to see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. In yesterday's budget, the government raised the number of weeks women can claim EI maternity benefits before their due date from 8 to 12, which is certainly a good thing. You are recommending, however, that clauses 6 and 7 be cut out of your bill, if I understand correctly, and I think that's a shame. I think we should still try to extend that period to 15 weeks before the due date, as those provisions seek to do.
I was in the House when your bill was being debated, and Quebec's program was mentioned repeatedly. I spent more than a decade as the director of a community housing organization. As in many service fields, all the workers were women, save for one or two. They were entitled to access preventive withdrawal benefits as of week 14 of their pregnancy. Under Quebec's program, as soon as a woman's job poses a health risk, her workplace is assessed. An effort is then made to determine whether she can be reassigned with the same employer while keeping the same working conditions and pay, even if the new job has fewer responsibilities. If it is ultimately determined that she cannot continue working in that environment, the program entitles her to continue receiving her pay from the employer during the first five days. After that, she receives 90% of her pay.
We really have to keep up the effort at the federal level because every Canadian woman in every province deserves a program like that.
Mr. Gerretsen, our committee must do what it can to propel your bill forward. Your national maternity assistance program certainly sounds good, but Canadian women need more than just consultations; they need real measures that will improve their situation.
Why would we not keep fighting for your bill in its entirety and the 15 weeks it proposes?
When I was elected for the first time, federally anyhow, a year and a half ago, and I found out very quickly that I would have to put forward a private member's bill, this idea was the one that immediately came to mind. I said, “We're going to change the world. We're going to change EI, and we're going to do this.” Then very quickly I found out that I wasn't allowed to spend any new money, so that shattered a lot of my dreams.
However, I worked within the system that says a private member's bill cannot call for the spending of any new money and aimed instead to set up a framework through which that discussion could happen. If you're looking for somebody to continue this fight, I am certainly going to be there until we can say that 50% of those who work in trades are women because they choose to and want to.
The Quebec model is a very good model to look towards as an example. One of the things to highlight in particular about the Quebec model, the early release program, is that it's a specific model for maternity. It's a system that's been put in place to help specifically with this type of situation, whereas nationally it's the Employment Insurance Act. It's an act that covers a whole host of different issues related to employment insurance.
The first thing Melodie did when she became pregnant was to go on sick leave. She was not sick; she was pregnant. The system we currently have is not one that supports the changing nature of the labour market and the fact there are more women who want to be in trades and who want to work with an X-ray machine or whatever it might be, or in these various different lines of work, who could be impacted if they also choose to have a family.
In my opinion, that is seriously affecting a woman's choice to go down that road. When a woman has to choose among career paths and she also wants to have a family at some point, she might say, “Then I better go down this path instead of the one I really want, which is this one.” The discussion I'm trying to have with this strategy is to come up with ideas as to how we can take down these barriers for women who want to pursue their dream job.
[Translation]
I am pleased to appear before you today as part of the committee's study of Bill C-243, a bill proposed by , the member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands.
I am the senior director working on employment insurance policy at the Department of Employment and Social Development.
[English]
With me today is Judith Buchanan. She is the director for labour standards and the wage earner protection program, also at Employment and Social Development Canada.
I propose to provide you with a brief overview of the bill, to give you a description of key benefit and leave provisions that currently support pregnant workers, to identify some of the considerations regarding the bill's provisions, and to describe some of the recent and ongoing activities that are closely aligned with the bill.
The bill proposes the following amendments to the Employment Insurance Act: to allow pregnant workers to start receiving maternity benefits earlier than those currently available if the worker leaves a job that may pose a risk to her or to her unborn child; to mandate the Minister of Employment and Social Development, in collaboration with provincial and territorial governments, to conduct consultations on the prospect of developing a national maternity assistance program strategy; and to mandate reporting to Parliament on those consultations as well as ongoing reporting to Parliament.
Let me begin by describing the current benefit and leave provisions. EI maternity benefits are intended to support a woman's income when she's out of the workforce to recuperate from pregnancy and childbirth. Under the Employment Insurance Act, eligible workers may receive up to 15 weeks of maternity benefits. Those maternity benefits can start as early as eight weeks before the expected date of birth and must end no later than 17 weeks after the child is born. Depending on what suits the mother's situation, benefits can be started before or following childbirth.
[Translation]
EI parental benefits are intended to support parents providing care to a newborn or newly adopted child or children. Eligible parents may share up to 35 weeks of parental benefits following the birth or placement of the child for the purpose of adoption.
Federally regulated employees under the Canada Labour Code have corresponding job protected leave. Leave provisions are largely a provincial/territorial responsibility and vary across the country.
EI maternity and parental benefits are available across the country, except in Quebec. Residents of Quebec may be eligible for maternity, paternity, and parental benefits under the Quebec parental insurance plan.
[English]
In addition, the federal jurisdiction, and the Province of Quebec specifically, offer preventive withdrawal job protection for pregnant and/or nursing women related to workplace health and safety risks.
Federally regulated employees under the Canada Labour Code may request a job reassignment based on medical advice. Once the request is made, the woman may take leave with pay until the employer either accommodates her request for reassignment or confirms that they're able to do so. If a job reassignment is not provided, the woman may take an unpaid leave of absence for the duration of the risk.
In Quebec, the safe maternity experience program, Pour une maternité sans danger, provides for preventive withdrawal, as well as wage replacement, for employees under provincial jurisdiction. In 2014, there were over 35,000 claims in the province of Quebec representing 40% of live births, and approximately $228 million was paid in benefits, in addition to the benefits that were paid through the Quebec parental insurance plan.
Turning to the provisions of Bill , it seeks to advance gender equality by addressing a workplace health and safety issue. First, the bill would raise awareness of this key reproductive health issue in the workplace and the importance of positive responses to promote gender equality, particularly in occupations that are traditionally dominated by men, such as the skilled trades.
Second, the EI provisions of the bill would provide flexibility to pregnant workers to begin their maternity benefits sooner and enhance income security when they're unable to be accommodated by their employer in unsafe workplace conditions.
[Translation]
While Bill does not provide additional weeks of maternity or parental benefits, by providing earlier access to maternity benefits, the bill is expected to result in incremental program costs.
Specifically, for an EI claimant who does not currently use all of the combined weeks of maternity and parental benefits and who starts to receive maternity benefits earlier in accordance with the bill, that claimant would be expected to receive additional weeks of benefits.
Let me also address some potential shortcomings of the bill.
[English]
First, the onus is generally on an employer to provide a safe workplace. Providing income replacement for workers during preventive withdrawal may implicitly signal to employers a reduced onus on them to address workplace health and safety issues and to identify accommodative options.
Second, allowing all 15 weeks of maternity benefits to be taken before the expected date of birth would deviate from a key policy intent for maternity benefits and leave, which includes providing mothers with time off to recuperate after childbirth. In addition, mothers could potentially exhaust their maternity benefits before the baby is born and before parental benefits could be paid, leaving a gap in income support.
Third, there are some remaining, largely minor, technical issues related to the bill. For example, it would be important that EI provisions come into force on a Sunday to align with the concept of an EI week.
Finally, I'd like to close by speaking about the alignment of recent and ongoing activities with the bill, including, of course, yesterday's budget announcement. I'll turn now to slide 5.
[Translation]
The government has committed to improving the flexibility of EI parental benefits and corresponding leave, and the inclusiveness of supports for caregivers. The objective is to evolve to meet the changing needs of the workers and their families in this country.
[English]
Yesterday, budget 2017 announced the government's proposal to provide more flexibility for maternity and parental benefits and more inclusive caregiving benefits to help support Canadian families. Specifically, it proposes to allow women to claim EI maternity benefits up to 12 weeks before their due date, providing more flexibility compared to the current eight weeks, if they so choose.
I'd also like to tell you about some of the alignment of other recent activities with the bill.
Last year, between May and August, the EI Service Quality Review Panel travelled across the country and sought input on ways to improve services to EI claimants. In October and November of 2016, Minister Duclos held online consultations with Canadians to seek their views on the government's mandate commitment for more flexible parental benefits. The consultations specifically included the issue of considering earlier access to maternity benefits for pregnant workers due to workplace health and safety risks. Those consultations were also brought to the attention of provinces and territories at various levels through the Forum of Labour Market Ministers, a key forum through which the federal government maintains ongoing engagement with provinces and territories on labour market programs and issues.
Federal-provincial-territorial collaboration is important to continue building on an efficient labour market and a skilled labour force. Subsequently, the “Employment Insurance Service Quality Review Report: Making Citizens Central”, was released on February 1, 2017. Furthermore, the summary reports on the consultations with Canadians and stakeholders on maternity, parental and caregiving benefits were released on February 27 of this year. In addition, an annual report to Parliament is mandated on the operation of the EI program. Through the annual “EI Monitoring and Assessment Report”, the Canada Employment Insurance Commission reports on income supports, including maternity and parental benefits, employment supports, and service delivery.
I think you'll see that an awful lot of recent government activities are very closely aligned with the bill's objectives and with the text of the bill.
I will close there. Thank you very much for time. I look forward to your questions.