Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks to all the witnesses.
Ms. Ballard, allow me to thank you especially. Your story inspired this bill and your testimony has particular significance for me, and for my colleagues, I am sure.
My first question goes to Ms. Dempsey.
In a letter to the previous minister, the National Council of Women of Canada indicated that it would prefer maternity benefits to be provided through a more flexible employment insurance system. In your testimony, however, you clearly said that, throughout an entire pregnancy, it is more about employment conditions. You told us about the relationship to the employer and the need to find a position that poses fewer risks.
At our most recent committee meeting, we had with us an official from the Union des travailleuses et travailleurs accidentés ou malades. He told us about a program that has existed in Quebec since 1981, a program called For a safe maternity experience. The program provides preventive withdrawal leave to pregnant workers whose position poses a danger to them. The official told us that the employment insurance scheme is not the right vehicle to handle a preventive withdrawal program. Actually, that opinion is quite widely shared in Quebec.
Then, in her testimony, Ms. Ballard told us that Service Canada had no idea how to deal with her situation because pregnancy is not an illness. That is why, in Quebec, the program is funded exclusively by employers. Quebec considers that preventive withdrawal is more about working conditions. It's the working conditions that represent the dangers for a pregnancy or for an unborn child, not the pregnancy itself.
As a committee, we have to hold consultations and make recommendations with a view to establishing a national maternity assistance program. Should we establish from the outset whether this is about working conditions or maternity leave? Actually, the Supreme Court has already pointed the way in that regard. According to the court, given that preventive withdrawals are more closely linked to working conditions, they fall under provincial jurisdiction.
In our consultations, should we from the outset be seeing how the federal level can provide the leadership in establishing a program in each province such as there is in Quebec, not forgetting that the federal role in this area is limited to workers who are subject to the Canada Labour Code?
In your view, does preventive withdrawal have to be considered an extension of maternity leave or should it rather be a matter of workplace health and safety?