QUESTION PERIOD — Employment and Social Development
Parental Leave—Employment Insurance
June 21, 2021
Honourable senators, this question is for the Government Representative in the Senate.
Senator Gold, last Friday UNICEF published a report comparing parental leave and child care policies among 41 rich countries. Canada is underperforming. We learned that Canada ranks a disappointing twenty-second overall, twenty-third in parental leave policies, sixteenth in access to child care and twenty-first in affordability of care.
Our parental leave policies are exclusive of millions of Canadians in non-standard employment circumstances who do not satisfy the work requirements of EI. They are also not sufficiently generous. We only provide 52%, as compared to 66% in our peer OECD countries.
One proposal is to introduce a guaranteed income for the first year of the life of a child, regardless of parents satisfying a minimum work requirement in the previous year. This is an idea that was first proposed in 2019 on the Liberal platform and was included in the Minister of Employment’s mandate letter in 2019.
Senator Gold, why has the government failed to introduce a guaranteed paid family leave program?
Thank you for your question. The issues that you raise are obviously important to families across the country but are complex, especially in a federal system such as Canada’s, where so many of these issues and the differences between provinces flow from decisions that provincial legislatures properly make. Nor is it any less complex to introduce a guaranteed income, whether broadly or even targeted, as you suggested, again because of the complicated interaction between programs at the federal and provincial levels, and therefore brings the requirement of consultation, not only with provinces and territories but with other stakeholders.
Senator Gold, the current requirement for eligibility for parental leave is 600 hours of work in the previous year, as I mentioned. This excludes millions of Canadians who are in the “gig economy” or other form of non-standard work.
The government has recognized as much, providing a 480-hour credit to parents in August of 2020 due to the pandemic. The leave benefits Canada offers are insufficiently generous. I have championed in the past a guaranteed paid family leave, but there is also immense value in strengthening the EI-based parental leave policies.
Senator Gold, does the government believe the eligibility requirements include enough Canadians and that the benefits are sufficiently generous? If so, can you tell us why?
Thank you for your question. I think the most accurate answer is that these issues are always being reviewed by government and its officials, and will continue to be assessed and evaluated in the best interests of Canadians.
