Thank you for giving the Fédération des parents adoptants du Québec the opportunity to testify about Quebec's experience of adoption leave.
The Fédération is a non-profit organization founded in 1986 which provides services by and for adopting parents to provide them with support, information and guidance on resources, and to defend their interests.
That's the background against which the Fédération demanded and obtained benefit equity between biological parents and adoptive parents under Quebec's parental insurance system.
As you know, Quebec workers who have leave for the birth or adopting a child receive benefits under this system, not under employment insurance. The benefits are more generous as part of the overall family policies in place in the province. However, when the system came into force on January 1, 2006, there was an 18 week difference between the amount of leave for adoptive families and biological families. This inequity naturally affected adoptive workers, and their children, because adopted children were the only ones in Quebec not to be able to have a year of parental presence when they entered the family. It was worse than inequitable; it was discriminatory, as clearly demonstrated by lawyer Éric Poirier and law professors Carmen Lavallée and Daniel Proulx of the Université de Sherbrooke in their article entitled “Le régime québécois d'assurance parentale: un système discriminatoire à l'endroit des enfants adoptés”. It's undeniable that this type of worker protection system has a direct impact on children.
Since January 1, 2021, Quebec has been providing adoptive parents with benefits equivalent to those received by biological parents in terms of length of time and level of income replacement. This measure, which reinstated full equity, has a relatively minor impact on the financial health of the program, because adoptive parents are significantly less numerous than other parents. In 2022 in Quebec, adoptive parents collectively received only 0.5% of the benefits awarded to new parents. The financial stability of the program therefore does not depend heavily on this factor.
Not only is the additional time allowed for adoptive parents to be with their children beneficial to parents and children alike, but also for employers. As reported by many adoptive families that have benefited from the additional weeks available under the recent accommodation and support benefits for adoptions, employees return to work with better mental attitude because they have had the time needed to integrate the child into a daycare setting, which requires considerable resourcefulness for adopted children. They don't appear to feel as guilty as adoptive parents used to, when they were unable to comply with experts' recommendation that they should spend at least a full year with their newly adopted child. They also had more time available to help the child make up for any developmental delays or health setbacks, and to bond as a family.
In fact, spending more time with a child who has had some ups and downs in life and a break from a biological mother and, as is often the case, from many caregivers in adoptive families, it's an investment that gives children a chance to reach their full potential and contribute to society. It can also prevent certain types of harmful behaviour and learning problems stemming from the kinds of psychological harm that can require a working parent to take time off from work.
While the needs of adoptive families are certainly very different, they are no less important. Every extra week spent with an adopted child in the first year after adoption has an impact on their development and their lifelong relations with others.
Thank you.