:
Good morning, everybody. We have a full slate of witnesses to go through.
Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, October 26, 2016, the committee is resuming consideration of Bill , an act respecting the development of a national maternity assistance program strategy and amending the Employment Insurance Act regarding maternity benefits.
I'm very pleased to be joined, via video conference, by Alicia Ibbitson, as an individual. Here in Ottawa we have the Canadian Welding Association, represented by Dan Tadic, executive director. From Union des travailleuses et travailleurs accidentés ou malades, we have Roch Lafrance, secretary general.
Also by video conference, from the University of Alberta, is Dr. Nicola Cherry, professor, department of medicine. I understand you're joined there by Jean-Michel Galarneau. I'm glad we can see both of you.
We're going to start off today with Alicia Ibbitson, who is coming to us from Chilliwack, British Columbia.
The next seven minutes are yours.
:
Thank you so much for taking the time today to hear me. I am a new mother, so I was asked to speak today about my experiences.
Four months ago my daughter was born. I began my maternity leave the day I went into labour, as I wanted to be able to spend as much time as possible taking care of my baby during the first year of her life. However, many women are not so fortunate as I was. There are women who simply cannot afford to live on 55% of their already meagre wage, so they are driven back into the workforce earlier than they would like after their baby is born.
My recommendations to this committee are put forth in order to assist these women in taking the time necessary to heal and to care for their newborn babies. While we have some excellent maternity benefit strategies in place in Canada, women who are earning below-average salaries may not be able to take advantage of the maternity benefits that are provided. They are slipping through the cracks.
According to Statistics Canada's most recent data, 1.5 million single women in Canada live on a low income. Many women who are working long hours to provide for their families would simply not be able to live on 55% of their wage. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's 2015 report, the average rental cost for a two-bedroom apartment in British Columbia is $1,136. For many women, that would be their entire maternity benefit, leaving nothing for groceries, transportation, and the many other expenses that come with raising a family.
Single mothers in my province, B.C., are provided with assistance in career training and child care during the first year after their maternity leave. This is absolutely a positive step in empowering these women to enter the workforce and thrive, but it does not address the issue of how these women can financially make ends meet while they are caring for their newborn babies at such a vulnerable time. Getting free tuition isn't the same as getting money to put food on the table.
Many women who meet the requirements for the number of hours worked to qualify for maternity leave cannot live on the EI benefits provided, so they return to the workforce earlier than they would like. For that reason, I would like to propose that the committee explore the possibility of providing a minimum level of maternity leave for mothers who have reached the required hours, and increase the amount they are allowed to earn while on maternity leave from 40% to a maximum dollar amount.
These women are working 600-plus hours, which can often prove to be difficult during a pregnancy. They are making efforts to be in the workforce and provide for their families, and they are contributing to the employment insurance program through their paycheques. These efforts often go unrewarded as they return to work early and don't get to collect maternity leave for the full time period allowed.
My second recommendation is to allow families to fill out the necessary paperwork for the child tax benefit earlier. Many women do not begin receiving maternity leave benefits until a few weeks after their child is born, and it is usually a couple of months before the child tax benefit is received. For these families, it is difficult or impossible to withstand a gap in financial inflow. It leads them to return to work, or to rack up high-interest credit card debt that will later be difficult to repay.
I propose that the necessary paperwork and applications can be filled out during a woman's final weeks of pregnancy so that she can receive the child tax benefit as soon as possible after her child is born. This small administrative change could make a world of difference for a family facing financial hardship.
It is a privilege to live in a country like Canada that provides income assistance so that mothers like me can recover from giving birth and stay home and take care of their infant children. The problem comes when a percentage of women are not able to take advantage of such benefits because they are of lower-income status.
When I became pregnant, I had a choice. I chose to keep my pregnancy, have a child, and stay home with her in her first year of life. I was supported financially by my husband's income and the EI maternity leave benefits I collected. Not all mothers feel they have the choice to keep their pregnancy due to financial limitations and hardships. In a country as blessed as Canada is, this is tragic. We cannot be content to know that some women may want to keep their child but don't because they feel they need to decide between their baby and the ability to have basic necessities for survival.
Women who choose motherhood should be cared for in such a way that they never feel they need to decide between keeping their baby and entering poverty. We need to ensure that they are given the freedom to take the time to recover from childbirth and the freedom to care for their newborn or infant child at home during those initial vital months of care and bonding.
Often, these financial hardships are limited in time, so the mother would be fine after a few years of help and support and would be able to raise her children independently thereafter.
has given us the opportunity with Bill to broaden the scope of the wonderful maternity benefits we have in this country so that they can reach the women who most need them. There are vulnerable women in difficult situations who have made the choice to keep their babies, to give birth and raise children. We should honour that choice and implement supports to aid them in the journey of taking care of themselves and their children.
Thank you for your time.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The Canadian Welding Association is very pleased to be here today. We thank the committee for inviting us to speak on this very important bill, but before I begin those remarks, I would like to provide some background information on our organization.
The Canadian Welding Association is a division of the Canadian Welding Bureau, which is a not-for-profit organization that is mandated to promote and support the welding and joining industry in Canada. The Canadian Welding Bureau upholds Canada's national welding standards and has kept Canadians safe through the certification of welding companies, products, and the qualifications of welders for nearly a century. The association is composed of over 65,000 members, with 25 chapters across Canada. We have international membership in 80 countries.
Our organizations support every facet of the welding industry, a critical industry in the success of the Canadian economy. Fabricated structural steel and bridges, shipbuilding, pipeline construction, and energy development are some of the industries that are using our innovative certification program—in total, over 7,000 companies.
Most people don't realize just how much of our modern world is welded together. The experienced hand of a welder is essential to creating everything from our cars, planes, and ships to pacemakers, hearing aids, and surgical tools. It is also critical for the success of many major infrastructure and development projects across the country, such as buildings, bridges, subways, pipelines, and several others. Welding contributes over $5 billion to the Canadian economy and employs over 300,000 individuals.
Through our work over the last several decades, we have realized that there is a need for greater outreach to attract more Canadians to work in this innovative industry. That's part of the reason why in 2013 we established the Canadian Welding Association Foundation. The CWA Foundation has a key mandate to improve welding education and student engagement across Canada. As a registered charity, the CWA Foundation has developed programs that reach under-represented groups in the industry, including women, indigenous peoples, new immigrants, and youth. The foundation has already contributed $5 million in support of welding education, scholarships, equipment purchases, and training for teachers. Our cumulative investment will be $15 million by 2019-20.
All levels of government are planning to invest in significant infrastructure projects over the next few decades. Coupled with investments in shipbuilding, mining, construction, transportation, and pipeline projects, the demand for welders and other tradespeople will only continue to grow. Skills Canada has estimated that one million skilled trades workers will be needed by the year 2020.
Recent research has also found that balancing the gender ratio between men and women in the skilled trades is important for creating a strong, diversified economy. Having a balanced gender ratio can even increase revenues by roughly 41%. Obvious ways to diversify the labour pool are by recruiting, retaining, and advancing women in skilled trades. These steps are important because of the increased retirements of baby boomers, along with Canada's aging population; high competition in the need for trades workers in Canada and internationally; and new occupations with trade skills demands.
Currently, only 5% of welders are women. We have noted that there is a growing interest among women to enter this field, but experiences like the one of the woman welder that led to the creation of Bill speak to a larger narrative of how certain policies can deter women from entering fields such as welding and other trades. Through our work with employers and that of our foundation, we have invested in programs that encourage and support women to consider careers in welding.
For example, the CWA Foundation recently partnered with the Irving shipyards in Halifax to cover the tuition and welding gear costs for 18 women who are currently participating in apprenticeships at the Irving shipyards. Also, this past January, we held a week-long welding camp here in Ottawa for single mothers, and we have initiated a series of summer camps for women and girls across the country in an effort to expose them to the industry. We have witnessed first-hand how our outreach is translating into more women enrolling in post-secondary welding programs.
Bill is critical for ensuring that future women welders, or anyone working in the trades, are not placed in a position of financial hardship when making a decision to have children.
We are proud of the work we do in communities across Canada. From providing scholarships to funding welding experience camps, we work to ensure that we meet the needs of the industry, now and in the future. Welds are literally everywhere, so it is important that we have a robust supply of well-trained welders, and that includes encouraging more women to enter the field.
To conclude, let me just reiterate that we are now seeing more women enrolled in trades programs across the country. Our organization is continuing to work collaboratively with the foundation to ensure that welding programs are available in secondary schools across the country, which is critical for attracting more women and under-represented groups to enter the field.
Bill realizes the value of supporting women who are unable to work due to pregnancy and whose employers are unable to accommodate them by providing reassignment. This bill allows for greater flexibility for pregnant women to be properly accommodated, so they are not forced into financial hardship. The enactment of Bill C-243 into law will protect pregnant women and help our goal of encouraging more women to consider a career in the trades.
Thank you.
First, we would like to thank you for the invitation to take part in this consultation, which we consider very important.
Having apprised ourselves of the bill, we understand that it has several objectives, but that its main objective is to conduct a consultation for the development of a Canada-wide pregnant workers' preventive withdrawal program. We support such a consultation according to the parameters in clause 3 of the bill—we want to emphasize that—with the understanding that provincial jurisdictions will be respected. We think it is desirable that all Canadian women in the workplace have access to a preventive withdrawal program for pregnant workers.
As you know, Quebec already has such a program. In effect since 1981, the right to preventive withdrawal of pregnant or breastfeeding workers is contained in the Act Respecting Occupational Health and Safety, and it was a very important step forward for women. It put an end to the terrible dilemma of pregnant women who had to choose between earning a salary to support their families, or risk losing their baby or jeopardizing its health when their working conditions were dangerous.
This program is also a significant step forward for public health in Quebec, because in addition to protecting pregnant workers, it requires that women's working conditions be scientifically documented; this has contributed to dispelling the myth that women's work is less dangerous than that of men, and has meant improved prevention of work injuries for all women. This experience, which has been largely positive in Quebec, indicates that public interest would be better served if all Canadian workers had access to a program with the same objectives.
However, we must say that we are not favourable to the changes proposed in clauses 6 and 7 of the bill, which would create entitlement to employment insurance benefits during a pregnant worker's preventive withdrawal. There are several reasons for our position.
First, pregnant workers' right of preventive withdrawal is not maternity leave. Preventive withdrawal is triggered by working conditions that pose a risk to a woman's pregnancy or to her unborn child, and not by the pregnancy as such. The pregnancy is not the problem.
That is why the first step is always an attempt to change the working conditions or assign the worker to other duties, and not to grant leave. The issue relates to working conditions, and that is why the cost of the program in Quebec is entirely covered by employers, as they are the ones who control working conditions, and they also decide whether the worker will continue to work or not.
We feel that the employment insurance plan is not the proper vehicle for that program. That system is above all a common insurance fund to assist workers who lose their jobs. The more we broaden its scope, the more we risk perverting the foundations of the system. In fact, we feel that integrating a program that is related to labour relations and working conditions into a federal act would probably be a breach of provincial jurisdiction.
Moreover, the bill says nothing at all about the administration of the program. For instance, what happens if the medical certificate is challenged? There is no provision to address that. A specific process to deal with those issues is needed, as we have seen in Quebec with the preventive withdrawal program. Specific expertise is also required, which managers of the plan probably do not have.
Secondly, we do not think it very useful to institute preventive withdrawal for the last 15 weeks prior to childbirth. First, as we know, in the last budget the government announced its intention of extending the benefit period during pregnancy to 12 weeks before birth. Thus the preventive withdrawal in the bill would only cover three additional weeks.
In addition, this would create totally unacceptable distinctions between female workers occupying different job categories. For instance, a stock handler could receive preventive withdrawal benefits if she cannot lift certain loads at the end of her pregnancy, whereas a teacher who should not be in contact with children during the first 20 weeks of her pregnancy because she is not immunized against parvovirus B19 would not have access to them. If the legislator's will is to institute a preventive withdrawal program for pregnant workers, it is absolutely necessary that workers have access to it when they are exposed to a risk, and not on the basis of a schedule. For example, in Quebec 94% of preventive withdrawals are granted before the 23rd week of pregnancy.
Consequently these changes do not seem very useful for the vast majority of pregnant workers who are exposed to dangerous conditions in their work environment.
Thirdly, and I will conclude with this, the adoption of the proposed changes to the Employment Insurance Act would mean that a pregnant worker receiving preventive withdrawal benefits would be seriously penalized financially, and we think that is unacceptable. Indeed, she would at first receive benefits amounting to only 55% of her salary; she would have no income during the two-week waiting period provided by law, and she would not be entitled to anything from the company benefits program, and consequently would receive nothing from that. In addition, the weeks of preventive withdrawal would be deducted from the weeks of standard or special benefits she might receive later.
In conclusion, our organization supports the Canada-wide consultation on the right to preventive withdrawal for pregnant workers, but we recommend that you not adopt sections 6 and 7 of the bill amending the Employment Insurance Act.
Thank you.
:
I'm going to start by just telling you a little bit about who I am and why I might have some information useful to the committee.
I am a physician and epidemiologist whose research is in the field of occupational health. I am currently tripartite chair of occupational health in the faculty of medicine at the University of Alberta.
Although my research covers a wide range of topics, two periods of research are particularly relevant to the work of this committee.
First is the research I carried out some 30 years ago as associate director of the program “femmes au travail” at the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail. This program studied 56,000 women interviewed immediately after a live birth, still birth, or spontaneous abortion in 11 Montreal hospitals in 1982 to 1984. The evidence from that study has provided much of the data in which the operation of the retrait préventif, the protective withdrawal from work during pregnancy, has been based. Alison McDonald, who led the program, died some years ago, but I'd be happy to answer any of the committee's questions on that project, its conclusions, and its impacts.
The second period of research is the work I've done in Alberta on the employment of tradeswomen and tradesmen, particularly those in the welding and electrical trades. This research was undertaken because of concerns about the effects, on the unborn child, of work as a welder during pregnancy. In Alberta, where there was a shortage of skilled workers during the boom cycle of the oil and gas industry, women, who were still a small minority, were increasingly entering welding apprenticeships, so we believed we could recruit sufficient numbers to reach a clear conclusion about whether the unborn child was affected and, if so, the exposures responsible.
We recruited 446 female welders and 440 women in the electrical trades from across Canada. For comparison of the effects of work in these trades on the health of the workers rather than the child, we also recruited male welders and electricians from Alberta. This study is still ongoing. We follow the subjects up to five years, but it will be completed during the next nine months. We are aiming to collect 360 pregnancies while the women are in the study, and as of yesterday, we've been informed of 344—181 in welders and 163 in electricians. We will produce a report next May on the findings from these recent pregnancies.
Meanwhile, we have been looking at pregnancies completed before the women joined the study, and it appears that working in either trade, either as an electrician or as a welder, at the start of pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of miscarriage. It is also clear that few women in these trades continue in trades work to the end of the pregnancy; 80% had stopped work in the trade by 28 weeks, with welders stopping trade work much earlier than those in the electrical trades. Overall, 43% of the pregnant welders and 69% of the pregnant women in electrical work had been reassigned or found work outside the trade during their pregnancy.
From both these studies, I believe there's good evidence that physically demanding work in pregnancy may be harmful to the unborn child, and in some circumstances, to the health of the mother.
Therefore, I support the intent to consult on the development of a national maternity assistance program. I would give a caution that any measures put in place must not lead to discrimination against women in the trades. The aim of occupational health is to make the workplace safe for everyone—women, including pregnant women, as well as men.
Our current study on which I'd be most happy to answer questions was set up to identify modifiable workplace exposures, and in discussion with Dan Tadic and others, to make recommendations about changes that will make the workplace safe for women, men, and indeed, for pregnant women.
Thank you.
Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today. I listened intently. I appreciate what you had to share.
In our last meeting we had , who is the sponsor of Bill , give testimony. He recommended that the committee amend Bill because there are two parts to the bill. One that a pregnant woman could move the 15 weeks to take them all prior to delivery. Right now a person can take up to eight weeks early. The recommendation was that they could take the full 15 weeks early. The government announced in the budget that it would be 12 weeks instead of 15. That half of his bill was redundant, and it was recommended it be removed. Quite a bit of the testimony we've heard from the witnesses today is addressing that aspect of the 15 weeks.
I appreciate the testimony, but I'm going to focus my questions, assuming that we'll respect 's request that we focus on the second portion of his bill. If we do amend it, taking out that first portion, his second portion is asking for a study, a consultation to create a national maternity assistance program. That will be the focus of my questions.
In the remaining portion of his bill, assuming it's amended, the minister must “conduct consultations on the prospect of developing a national maternity assistance program to support women who are unable to work due to pregnancy and whose employer is unable to accommodate them by providing reassignment”. Those consultations would include:
(a) the current demand for a national maternity assistance program;
(b) the adequacy of the current federal and provincial programs oriented to assisting women during pregnancy;
(c) the financial and other costs of implementing a national maternity assistance program;
(d) the potential social and economic benefits of a national maternity assistance program;
I'm quite interested in Alicia Ibbitson from Chilliwack, a new mom having just gone through a pregnancy. How old is your baby now?
:
Through our Canadian Welding Association Foundation charity we have a special focus on women in trades. We organize camps specifically to attract and recruit women. Last year we organized more than 50 camps, and I think this year there will be more than 100 camps. We participate at the Skills Canada national competitions and we talk with thousands of women and girls about the welding trades and professions. We're trying, then, to engage them at many events that we participate in. We actively seek women and provide the international support they may need, such as by funding scholarships and the various groups we sponsor.
We work with an organization called Indspire, as an example. We have given it $300,000 over a three-year period to provide scholarships for students. In addition, we give to students something in the range of 200, I believe, $2,500 scholarships across Canada.
We had our annual CanWeld Conference this past October in Edmonton and covered the entire travel costs and hotel accommodations of, I believe, 17 women at the conference. They had exposure to the industry and had an opportunity to see some of the technology on display at the trade show and engage with other people from industry who have similar experiences and challenges.
:
We are probably the most engaged organization of any organization in this country. We have a membership base. We have over 400 high schools throughout Canada that are engaged with us. Those are the high schools that we provide with electronic welding helmets, for example. We purchase equipment, we purchase supplies, we provide funding, we provide training for educators, so we do a lot of engagement. We organize an annual welding educators conference. That's coming up on May 29 and 30 in Winnipeg this year. We try to educate educators about advances in welding technologies so they can pass on the information to their students.
We're launching a new initiative this summer to improve our apprenticeship training across Canada. The purpose of this is to improve the method of training of apprentices. Apprenticeship methods of training at a company location haven't changed in centuries. Most organizations focus on 20% of the training taking place in the classroom, and 80% of apprenticeship training being done on the shop floor, in plants. This is the area that we are going to focus on. This is the area that needs support. We're doing a five-year study of apprenticeship training to try to introduce a new method, a new model of apprenticing.
I have been talking to various politicians about this and to various apprenticeship organizations that run the welding program. The CCDA organization, for example, loves this program. They are the organization responsible for Red Seal programs across Canada. We're actively engaged with them, and they like what we're doing. Industry loves what we're doing as well, and they're very supportive. This new model can be used as a template for other trades as well.
:
Mr. Chair, I want to thank all of our witnesses.
Mr. Lafrance, although the sponsor of the bill decided to withdraw clauses 6 and 7, it seems really relevant that our committee first determine what preventive withdrawal is, before we even support consultations. You pointed out that this program has been in existence in Quebec for 36 years, and that your organization has acquired a certain expertise in the matter.
This is my perspective: it is important that we establish that preventive withdrawal is not maternity leave, and that it is the working conditions that present a risk and not the pregnancy itself.
Your testimony reminded me, as someone who in fact benefited from preventive withdrawal, that I had a physician who dealt specifically with my pregnancy. However, the physician at the health centre who evaluated my condition and recommended preventive withdrawal did not provide care during my pregnancy.
You also provided important information about the fact that the employment insurance plan is not the proper vehicle for this program. We know that in Quebec preventive withdrawal leave is funded by employer contributions to the CNESST, the Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail. We often tend to forget that since the beginning of the 1990s, the federal government no longer contributes to the employment insurance fund. That fund is a vehicle employers and employees have given themselves through their contributions to deal with job loss. This is also an area of provincial jurisdiction.
This leads me to my first question. We know that in Quebec there is a program known as Pour une maternité sans danger, the safe motherhood program. However, I would like you to explain, for the benefit of my colleagues especially, how the Quebec pregnant workers' preventive withdrawal program works.
:
It is relatively simple. The program outlined in the bill is similar to the Quebec program, for instance in clause 6, which refers to a doctor's certificate, and reassignment.
As you said, the first step is that the woman must be followed by a physician during her pregnancy. If her doctor thinks that her work may present a risk, the physician will contact the public health branch which has offices in all of the regions. He will consult a specialist in that area. That doctor will assess the risks related to the woman's profession. For instance, welders have been the object of considerable study. If a female welder is in a job that respects the prevention standards in effect in Quebec, the business she works for is already known and environmental analyses will have been done. The doctor will be able to use that data to find out which products that worker is exposed to, and to see whether this presents a danger to her pregnancy or to the unborn child. So there are specific analyses. If none have been done in that particular business, in a few days, or very quickly, technicians or analysts will be sent to perform those analyses in the workplace.
Once the position has been analyzed, the specialist will recommend to the attending physician that a preventive withdrawal be authorized, or not, from a given week of the pregnancy. Will the withdrawal take place immediately, or later? The physician will issue a certificate. The worker will present it to her employer, who will decide whether he can modify her position to eliminate the risks. If not, the worker will be assigned to other duties where she will not be exposed to the danger. If the employer cannot do so, or does not want to—he is not obliged to do so—the worker will stop working and will receive benefits from the CNESST. The compensation is equivalent to 90% of her net salary, and is not taxable. It will not reduce the parental or maternity benefits she could be entitled to in the future.
I do want to point out that among the preventive withdrawals that are accepted, less than half are complete work withdrawals. About one quarter are reassignments. The worker will continue to work in a modified position, or in another one. For about another quarter of these withdrawals, the workers will be reassigned for a certain period before a total withdrawal. Not all workers totally withdraw from the workplace. It depends. The bill under study refers to the last 15 weeks of pregnancy. In Quebec, 95% of preventive withdrawals are granted before that. We have to assess the risk when it is present. Take the example of the bacteriological risks in a measles epidemic. If some of the workers in children's hospitals and day cares are not immunized, we have to react immediately. We cannot wait 15 weeks before the end of the pregnancy. It would be too late.
:
Sorry, I had no idea the question was to me.
To some extent, as Mr. Lafrance said, it is the employer's job to find the reassignment. If the employer has no wish to keep the woman at work, he or she won't try very hard necessarily to reassign. We do find the reassignment is much less among welders and electricians, whether it's because of the specialist nature of the work.... A welder is highly paid for skilled work. There may not be appropriate other work within a welding shop that a woman who's in later pregnancy can do.
We haven't talked yet about differences essentially between the physical demands of the job and chemical exposures. A woman who is a welder, even if she can be reassigned away from the physical hard work of welding, may still be exposed to fumes. That is also a problem.
I'm sure Dan Tadic can comment on that.
:
Thanks, everyone, for appearing today at our committee.
I was a former carpenter, and I was actually a welding teacher too. I taught kids how to weld, and I'm kind of proud of that. A basic weld I could teach them, but probably not at the level you're at, Mr. Tadic.
I'm encouraged, I guess, by the fact that this is being addressed. I think a lot of times when women make a decision about a trade, they'll make a decision, even two years before, if there's a risk to pregnancy or health or whatever. They'll do something different, or they'll possibly get out of the trade if they are already in it.
I'm wondering what percentage of your members are female now. Has the number or the percentage gone up dramatically?
[Translation]
I'd like to make a comment to start.
Ms. Ibbitson, thank you very much for the two recommendations you made with regard to the interpretation of maternity leave, child assistance, and the need to have additional funds specifically for low-income families.
We examined this at the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. I see that a lot of these things are related. Perhaps we could share some reports.
[English]
My first question is to Mr. Tadic.
I've had the opportunity to meet several representatives of the welding association, and I know you've done a fantastic job in trying to build the relationship with women in trades.
With the work you've done with the welding association, what have you done to try to get other trades involved in hiring more women in trades? It is, as you indicated, a growth opportunity to get more women involved moving forward.
:
I think we're leading by example. We interact with other organizations or other trades, other programs. We're extremely fortunate that we're a very well-funded organization, and we're able to put on programs that other organizations are unable to. Sometimes we're looked at as the leaders in this area, but other organizations are not as well funded. They suffer as a result and are unable to recruit as well as we're able to.
Our work with Skills Canada has been an experience that is worth noting here. We have funded students who compete, not only in Canada but also internationally, as an example. I don't know of any other trades organization that is able to do that kind of stuff in promoting the work we do.
We are connected with every welding college in this country, so we're talking to them on a regular basis. We are also a certifying body for welding, so we go through those colleges and actually witness the testing of their welders. We're engaged to a far greater extent than some of our other colleagues in the industry.
One thing I would like to suggest, if it's at all possible, is that when it comes to reassignment of work for welders, for example, or other tradespeople, if an employer has a job that is lower paying, then the employee could receive a supplement. Instead of getting $20 or $30 an hour, they're perhaps getting $15 an hour, and the balance would be supplemented through some EI program. I think that would be worth considering.
:
Actually, I wasn't particularly thinking about existing legislation.
I think there is always a danger that if employing a woman is, for whatever reason, more expensive than employing a man, fairness may not be the first thought on the employer's mind. I raise this as a caution. If there were to be any national program for maternity, the cost should be independent of whether or not the employer chooses to employ women. The employer shouldn't be allowed to duck out by saying, “We will only have men, so we won't have those additional costs.”
I know that in Quebec that isn't the case. The employer pays regardless of the way his workforce is constructed. This is something that, right from the beginning of these discussions, I would suggest you keep in mind.
[Translation]
Mr. Lafrance, Canada has a lot to learn from the system that exists in Quebec. I do not necessarily want to speak to clauses 6 and 7 and provincial jurisdiction—we might not agree on that point—but about the importance of having a benefit system.
At this time, we have an employment benefit system. However, in certain committees, among them the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, we have discussed the status of women in European countries. They have a benefit system that is not necessarily linked to employment insurance.
Can you tell us if you are considering including such elements? In Quebec, the system is not necessarily linked to employment; these are care-related benefits.
:
In Quebec, this does not concern employment; we want to know whether the worker is exposed to a risk, if there is a danger to her pregnancy or to her unborn child. There are no questions asked, she is withdrawn from her position, assigned to other duties, and if not she is paid by the commission.
I want to point out one important thing. All of the Quebec employers pay a contribution for all of their employees, women or men. Certain employers agree to assign the worker to another position, a less well-paid position. In that case, the worker is entitled to the same salary. Otherwise she would incur a loss. The employer is reimbursed for the additional cost. There is also an incentive there for the employer and the program provides for that.
If an employer has to pay $10,000, for instance, because a worker changes positions, he is reimbursed by the system.
Earlier, Ms. Cherry said that this was an expensive system. Everything is relative. I'll give you some figures. In Quebec, the preventive withdrawal program costs 0.2% of payroll. If you look at the employment insurance figures, it seems to me—because we do not have the same rates in Quebec—that it costs 3.9% in Canada. So these are not excessive costs, and the more employers agree to reassign their pregnant workers, the less they will be.
A reassigned worker does not cost very much. Either she will have the same salary, and so the reassignment will cost nothing, or there will be a salary difference, and all employers pay for the costs of the employer who agrees to reassign a worker. These are important points; the worker must not be penalized. If her salary is reduced, she will also be penalized with regard to her employment insurance benefits later. It is important that there not be a penalty.
You referred to the European systems. In France, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, the systems are comparable to the one in Quebec. The first thing they attempt to do is to keep the worker on the job, to correct the situation and remove the risks. She must not incur a loss nor lose future advantages. Integrating that into an employment insurance system at this time is a problem.
We are talking about 15 weeks currently. Suppose that period were extended.
We are talking about 0.2% of payroll for women to have access to 90% of their salary. I will remember that.
Mr. Lafrance, as you said in your presentation and you demonstrated this well, the management of the employment insurance plan does not have the specific expertise needed to administer a preventive withdrawal program.
Do other provinces have organizations equivalent to our CNESST?
If we are headed into a Canada-wide consultation, I'm trying to determine what other provinces are going to have to say on the whole issue of managing this on the basis of the current system.
Could you give us more details on that?
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I will start with Quebec. As I was saying earlier, the public health physician assesses the risk. He determines whether or not there is a danger. That is the system in Quebec. You have to understand that physicians from the commission that compensates injured workers are not the ones who assess the risk, but physicians from the public health care system do that.
I don't know how things work in all of the other provinces, but clearly there are public health physicians throughout Canada. In Ontario, this now falls under the Department of Labour, whereas in Quebec, it is under the CNESST. There are various levels, but in all of the provinces, there are physicians who specialize in workplace health, whether they fall under the Department of Labour, the Department of Health or other more specialized entities.
We say that the current employment insurance system does not have the necessary resources, but the fact remains that all of these resources are to be found in the provinces.
How will the employment insurance officer determine if the certificate is valid and if it is proper from the medical perspective?
A physician absolutely has to determine that. However, physicians do not fall under federal jurisdiction, but provincial jurisdiction. They are in the regions, the hospitals, the community health care clinics or, in Quebec, in the local community service centres. In order to determine the impact a situation may have on a pregnancy, you have to call on a physician. However, at this time at the federal level, the department does not have that expertise.
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The maternity leave and parental benefit programs in Quebec would not be affected. Quebec has a specific program for that. All of the programs are appreciated by some and not by others. I must say that Quebeckers are as a whole very proud of that program. Even the employers do not question it. However, the problem is that the employers who contribute to it say that they would prefer not to.
Since the end of the 2000s, they have asked that this program be integrated into the employment insurance system. When we read these provisions, we see clearly that these are the same criteria as for preventive withdrawal, and this raises concerns for us. Indeed, as soon as this is passed, all of Quebec's employers will say that the program is no longer needed and will ask that it be transferred to the federal level. We understand, because we are discussing it today, that this is a completely different system. In Quebec, it does not involve only the last 15 weeks.
It could have repercussions, so it's important to keep that in mind. Improving the lives of pregnant workers in Canada should not come at the expense of the only preventive withdrawal regime currently in place in the country. In other words, let's not destroy Quebec's regime in order to make things a bit better in the rest of the country.
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My question is also in line with the goal of having more women in the trades.
When I was in Lévis two years ago, I visited a manufacturing plant where a refugee from Haiti—she was a single mother of three kids—was earning over $100,000 as a welder. That's an incredible Canadian success story. She's very young so she'll be a contributing member of the economy for 40 years. Her kids will have a good, prosperous upbringing, and the company for which she works was able to fill a vacancy, which they desperately needed to do. They were desperate to have more welders. This is exactly the kind of story we want to hear more of.
However, we know that women continue to be under-represented in the skilled trades. Obviously, Bill attempts to address one of the barriers that may be standing in the way. Can you list other similar barriers government may be putting in the way that we as a committee can work to remove?
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There are two delays. The first delay is receiving your maternity leave benefits. I know that's across the board when you apply for EI. You are not allowed to apply for your maternity leave benefits until you stop working, the day you stop working. In my case, I filled out the forms when I was in labour. I stopped working that day. I worked the morning my child was born.
You can fill out the forms but then you receive your benefit a few weeks later. In my case, I had my child December 3, and I began receiving benefits at the beginning of January. There's a delay there in actually being approved.
The second delay is in receiving your child tax benefit, so that's a monthly per-child subsidy that we receive. It took over two months to receive that. Rather than being able to fill out the paperwork prior, knowing that we were going to have a child, we had to wait until she was actually born before we could fill out the paperwork, and then came the two-month waiting period before we received the child tax benefit.
A very low number of pregnancies are lost that late, so actually being able to fill out the forms within four to eight weeks before your due date would hopefully reduce that lag.
Mr. Lafrance, even though the bill's sponsor withdrew clauses 6 and 7, you said the proposed changes to the Employment Insurance Act weren't all that helpful. The committee has talked about that. It's a consideration that the consultations need to take into account.
You stressed the importance of not penalizing women. That is all the more important given that, overall, women earn less than men. It's important to look at the impact from a whole-of-career standpoint. If women go on maternity leave a number of times during their career and are penalized financially each time, they will be no better off.
I'd like to get a better sense of your position. How could an amendment be helpful?
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It would be important to speak with the public health authorities. Although they do not administer the program or the benefits, they do manage all the medical infrastructure. When I say “medical”, it involves the associated risk analysis. All kinds of scientists are working in that area.
I would also recommend speaking with Quebec's commission, which administers the program, as well as the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail, which does a lot of research in the area.
I think it's a good idea to speak to the two sides, as well. What do employers—I have no objection to consulting employers—and unions think? They are the stakeholders in the workplace who see how the program is administered.
I should point out that the program gives rise to very little in the way of court involvement. Very few legal challenges are initiated as compared with the occupational injury side of things, for instance. Very few disputes occur in relation to the program. A lot of people in Quebec are involved, and they could lend a hand. Another important group are the researchers who helped set up the program and continue to work on it today.
[Translation]
I'd like to thank the committee for giving me this time. I'm going to take advantage of it.
I taught welding for nearly 20 years. I worked with women's groups, groups specializing in the integration of women. We focused a lot on integration in the educational setting, as well as on the possibility of women becoming pregnant, even during training. We were trained to support these women.
I later became a construction project manager. I worked just as much with joiners as I did with every type of tradesperson. On some construction sites, we had workers from 16 to 20 different trades, which more and more women were joining. That gives rise to concerns, with occupational health and safety being very important.
My question is about specific cases. Do you think Bill C-243 has room for exceptions such as exposure to radiation, X-rays, and ultraviolet radiation in trades? The first three months of pregnancy are critical to fetal development.
The question is for both Mr. Lafrance and Mr. Tadic.
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I have another training-related question. Do you think our professional and technical training programs should go further and focus more on preparing women for non-traditional occupations, such as welding? For instance, it could perhaps become mandatory for women to disclose that they were pregnant when enrolling in certain training programs. That might avoid some problems.
Clearly, when a child is born with birth defects or disabilities, it is extremely costly for the government for many years, and it changes a person's life. The mother often has to stop working to take care of the child, and a whole slew of consequences come into play, and your earlier calculations do not take those into account.
Do you think that, from the get-go, we could use professional and technical training programs to establish very specific rules so that mothers at risk of giving birth to children with difficulties wouldn't have to face situations like the one I described?