Mr. Chair, I look at this and I feel that 12 weeks for parents who have lost a child is pretty darn reasonable, having gone through it myself in August. This has nothing to do with a crime being committed. This actually specifically mentions “including in cases of perinatal death.” There are a lot of things that can happen in an operating room or a delivery room where a child could be stillborn.
I had parents in my constituency office just last week, speaking to Blake's motion 110 and asking what they could do to advocate on behalf of parents who are asking for bereavement leave, specifically so they can bury their child and have time with their family.
I know it took me the better part of two months before I could return to work. You have to bury your child. You have memorial services. You have to talk to your family members. You may have other siblings of the child that you have to take care of. This is broader, too. This also includes other family members who you want to talk to, and you want to settle everything to do with their schooling, everything to do with, let's say, a memorial service and with the costs associated with it.
I think 12 weeks is the minimum we could offer parents who are burying a child. I know that, in my case, we don't have fixed leave for parliamentarians, and I didn't complain. I got back to work. I was answering emails when I could, and I did so. I don't think 12 weeks is too much to ask for when a death occurs. It's a huge thing to happen to a family, to lose a child, especially when there are siblings involved, so I don't think it's a lot to ask for this to be included.
There are other parliamentarians who have been working on issues associated with this. Laws are supposed to adjust for society, and in society today there are plenty of parents who are having to bury their children for different reasons, whether it's because of a stillbirth, a very late miscarriage or, in certain cases, medical mistakes or a medical cause for their passing.
Every single parent you talk to.... I've talked to a great deal of them over the past three or four months, people who have reached out to me, some in person, like Ashley in my riding whose three-year-old son Noah drowned in Florida last year. She's still bereaved. This is a year after the fact and she's still crushed by what happened. You can't blame her for that. Expecting her to return to work and apply for medical absences.... This is not a medical absence. This is bereavement leave, something entirely different.
I would look for us to be compassionate, to extend these 12 weeks to parents, to do it on their behalf. The laws are supposed to adjust to people and not force people to adjust to them. We're here for our constituents. We're here for people. We're here for parents. It should work the other way around. We should adjust the law so that it suits them.
Those are the points that I want to put on the record.