QUESTION PERIOD — Employment and Social Development
Parental Leave—Employment Insurance
June 1, 2023
Your Honour, I would like to thank you for taking on the responsibility of being our Speaker; it is wonderful to see you in that chair.
My question is for the Government Representative. Senator Gold, entrepreneurship is fraught with challenges, some of which are particularly challenging for under-represented groups, including women.
Consider Sampler, a technology platform that helps companies to launch new products. Sampler has 1,000 companies that it works with, 45 employees, is on track to get $10 million in revenue and just acquired a New York–based company to expand its business further into the United States and Europe. It is the sort of level of success that we want to see more of. Imagine the surprise of Sampler’s founder and CEO, Marie Chevrier, when she went on maternity leave and found her application for parental benefits was declined, even though she had been paying into the Employment Insurance system, EI, for years.
I was shocked to learn that the Canada Revenue Agency declined her application on the belief that as a business owner she “would not truly be able to take a maternity leave.” Ms. Chevrier was left with no government support at a time when she needed it the most, and she is far from alone, as I understand.
Senator Gold, what is the rationale behind this arguably anti-feminist policy? Are there any plans for its review in the near future in order to allow entrepreneurs, and especially women, to feel more confident about building their families without fear of financial uncertainty?
Thank you for this important question. The government understands and believes that maternity and parental benefits need to be both fairer and more flexible.
Currently, the government is analyzing what it has heard from parents, workers, employers, unions and other partners, including entrepreneurs, to ensure that the changes to our EI system are informed by those who feel their impact the greatest. With respect to entrepreneurs, I will raise your concerns with the relevant minister, but I can assure you, honourable colleague, that the government is and continues to be attentive to issues of this kind, to feminist policy concerns. Women hold the top ministerial portfolios in this government’s cabinet, and I can assure you that they look at all issues through a lens that does not ignore the realities and needs of women.
The government states that the empowerment of women is a top priority, and, to its credit, we now have a gender-balanced Senate, a gender-balanced cabinet and a federal Women Entrepreneurship Strategy.
Policies across government departments, like the CRA decision, often contradict what the government says it cares about. Women entrepreneurship is a top government priority. How do we get through this issue of having a whole-of-government approach around these top priorities? It seems there is no horizontality in so many different areas. They are siloed into one decision or another, but the priority does not permeate across government. I see this as being a constant challenge. What do you see us being able to do in the Senate or the government doing in terms of addressing that problem with horizontality?
Thank you for your question. Look, it is a challenge in government to work across departments. From my experience in the last three and a half years, I can attest to the fact that on many policy fronts there are three, four or sometimes even a larger number of ministers who are mandated to work together on this, which is a serious attempt to not be trapped in silos. The government is attentive to that and, in my experience, is in fact doing that. I will certainly bring this to the attention of my colleagues in the other place to reinforce the point that you made, which is a totally valid one.
With regard to what we can do in the Senate, the Senate can do many things. We are the masters of our own house. That includes, if the Senate so wills, launching a study on this and providing some input, guidance and reflections to the benefit of this and any future government.
