Human Resources Committee on March 23rd, 2026

No, absolutely not, which is, again, why I feel so strongly about it and why I'm here. I've seen literally hundreds of families navigate this and be forced to go back to work. Again, like I said, I was privileged enough to be in a financial situation.... I had a partner who was able to sustain the household financially, so I was able to go back to work at my own pace. However, a lot of families, especially now—that was 13 years ago—do not have that privilege.

I wasn't being hyperbolic when I said that I fear for the lives of a lot of them, because it is not.... A couple of weeks is not sufficient. That excerpt I read to you was eight weeks later, and the emotions were still almost as fresh as on day one. Even just speaking from a biological perspective, I think the hormonal shift that happens postpartum really needs to be taken into consideration here. I understand that not every parent is going to be a biological parent, but I think it is a factor that needs to be considered. Those physical, biological, hormonal changes happen, and the time that it takes for your body to finish adjusting to that is not impacted by the death of your child, at least not in an expeditious way.

Liberal

Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC

We heard testimony from witnesses previously. They said that there should be more wraparound support systems in place. Looking to your experience, what could those wraparound supports look like? What would have been nice for you to have access to that perhaps was not there at the time when you needed that help?

As an Individual

Everything. That's why we started the organization. There really was nothing.

I understand that a lot of this is.... I'm not clear whether your question was specific to EI or if you're talking about supports in general.

Liberal

Annie Koutrakis Liberal Vimy, QC

It's more from a societal standpoint, whether that's employers or whether that's supports that should be in place. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Do we also need a village to look after parents who tragically have to go through this experience, and what would that look like?

As an Individual

Absolutely. There are organizations like ours that you can look to for specific examples, but Empty Arms has a network. We work directly with the hospital, JPCH. We work with social workers. We work with counsellors. We do things like yoga for grief. We do family paint nights because children are losing their siblings as well. We have annual walks where the whole family gets to come and do sidewalk chalk art and write letters to their babies they are missing. It is an entirely different experience for those families from what it was for those of us who got the organization off the ground, because what we did was essentially create what we would have wanted.

I was telling Gabriel earlier that when I got home from the hospital the day that I left Marlow, I went to put my two-year-old to bed and I would always sing her to sleep every night and I realized that I hadn't sung to Marlow at all, so I had a hard time putting her to bed for weeks. It would have been as simple as someone suggesting that, so those are the types of things that we suggest to families. We bring a book for them to read to their babies.

I think it comes down to just humanizing the experience.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey

Mrs. Larouche, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Bloc

Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again for your testimony, Ms. Koop.

Mr. Pelletier, I'd like to go back to an earlier question to try to give parents such as Ms. Koop as much help as possible to get through this kind of ordeal with as little paperwork and as much humanity as possible. We have to make sure, as you said earlier, that we remove as many administrative barriers as possible so that parents can focus on their healing.

Beyond that, as I said, we're also trying to understand how Bill C‑222, once implemented, will maximize the positive impact it will have.

I want to come back to something very practical. You talked about the fact that, right now, the bill would have little impact on parents in Quebec because of the Quebec parental insurance plan, or QPIP. Does the bill create a form of inequity between workers in Quebec, for example, and those in the provinces and territories, given that we have this system and that is why you are proposing your amendment?

Lawyer, Comité Chômage Haut-Richelieu et du Suroît

Gabriel Pelletier

I would say that we are proposing the amendment so that parents across Canada can benefit from the measures in Bill C‑222. That's how I would phrase it. I think bringing the bill forward is a noble objective. That said, I think it must be acknowledged that QPIP already proposed similar measures, in some respects. Once again, this is not an issue of Quebec against Canada, but this is just a fact.

Beyond that, however, an amendment that would target parents who receive caregiver benefits for people under 18 will benefit all of Canada. There will, in fact, be something specific for Quebec in that respect.

Bloc

Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC

Ms. Koop and Mr. Pelletier, can you tell us, in the time remaining, what the priority would be? What should we start with to help parents as much as possible?

As an Individual

Honestly, it's the time. The biggest thing is just knowing that families are going to have time jumping through all of the administrative hoops, especially if there's a shortened amount of time. You're taking away from the very short amount of time they already have. I would add time and some mechanism that doesn't make you tell everybody and their neighbour about your dead child and make you provide documentation, instead of just taking your word for it. I'm not sure if that would be some automatic mechanism. My son's health card arrived a couple of months after he was born, even though I hadn't applied for it. If we can do that, surely....

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey

Thank you, Mrs. Larouche.

We will conclude this round with Ms. Goodridge for five minutes.

Conservative

Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank you, Briana, for coming. Thank you for sharing about Marlow. Thank you for the work you've done with Empty Arms. It's extremely special to take your space of grief and turn it into blessings for families. From one mom to another, I want to tell you that I really appreciate it.

I have no idea what you went through. I have no capacity for understanding that, but I do have capacity...because I'm a NICU mom. When I had my second baby, I left the hospital without a baby. That was a really hard thing. I was 500 kilometres away from my home, and I was 500 kilometres away from my two-year-old. Hearing you tell your story brought up lots of feelings, and I want to thank you for that.

I'm just wondering, given your experience and all of the advocacy you've done, what pieces, whether they be federal, provincial.... You talked about the health card—oh, my God. For us our health challenge was that we got airlifted out after our little boy was born, and 10 days later a bill for $34,000 showed up, because they failed to enter the Alberta health number properly. They flagged us as being out of province and charged us for the NICU stay. Luckily, I knew that probably wasn't right, so I called and got that flag removed. But I can't imagine what another family would be dealing with, where they just bring home this brand-new precious baby that's had medical complications, and now they have a $34,000 bill.

What challenges did you face, whether provincial or federal? Perhaps we can use this moment to help advocate to make sure no other family goes through something like that?

As an Individual

Again, I'm not sure. It's going to be very regional. Again, I just go back to the time and the resources, because there are people who specialize in bereavement and in helping people navigate these situations. I'm talking about professional therapists, and what have you. That was something that would have benefited me in those early months. We have a couple of counsellors who specialize in pregnancy and infant loss, but they take months and months to get into. I think there might be two. I know there was one for a long time. Again, it's out of pocket. There aren't any built-in supports, so to say what what we need, it's everything.

Again, starting with the time and the money gives people somewhere to start, so they can find those limited resources that are available and be able to access them.

Conservative

Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Mr. Pelletier, you made a suggestion to provide ongoing support to parents whose sick child has died. Have you already submitted your proposed amendment to the committee? If not, can you provide it to us so that we can look at it?

Lawyer, Comité Chômage Haut-Richelieu et du Suroît

Gabriel Pelletier

Thank you for your question.

We did, in fact, submit a brief with a proposed amendment attached. We think the content is fair. The wording could obviously be reworked, but the idea is there. This is an amendment that specifically targets parents who are receiving benefits for a critically ill child, parents of a child under 18 or another family member who cares for a person under 18 who is receiving compassionate care benefits.

The amendment, as it indicates, is specific to those people. It would also amend the Canada Labour Code to ensure that leave defined in the code does not conflict with measures under the employment insurance program. It would cover both of those aspects, which would help many parents.

Conservative

Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Thank you.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey

We'll go to Ms. Fancy for five minutes to conclude this round.

Liberal

Jessica Fancy-Landry Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Koop, for being here. Thank you for what you're doing for other families. That's what women do sometimes. It's cathartic for us to help others who have been in similar situations. The courage you're demonstrating today and your knowledge of the human side of this law aren't being taken for granted by us.

I'll take a moment to thank some of my colleagues. We haven't mentioned Karina Gould, the initial writer of Bill C-222, Evan's law. Evan is from her riding. The bill was picked up by Terry Beech.

Thanks, Terry, for helping with this private member's bill.

I will also thank you, Blake, for the 10 years you've put into getting this and similar types of legislation through.

I wanted to make sure that we said thanks to those who are helping to get this done.

Ms. Koop, I wonder if you could share the biggest challenge you've had in accessing support, whether it was for the administrative burden, for your own health or for your family as a whole. You told us that you had another toddler at home at the time and your partner was still at work while the family was grieving. Could you talk about the biggest challenge and how that impacted your family?

As an Individual

Every situation is going to be different. Accessing mental health resources in Canada is difficult to begin with. However, with a subject as uncomfortable as this one, even in a city like Saskatoon, where we now have an organization and have these resources, we still have parents say that they didn't know the organization existed until they needed it, because we just don't talk about it.

Normalizing the experience of pregnancy, infant and child loss is the first step in ensuring that families get access to the available resources. Then the next step is, obviously, increasing the resources themselves.

Liberal

Jessica Fancy-Landry Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS

Thank you very much for that honest answer.

I'd like to talk about families—past, present and future—and the work you've done to help advocate for other families. Unfortunately, sometimes people still fall through the cracks.

Could you elaborate on any groups of parents or families who might still fall through the cracks under this bill? Are there any amendments you might have, with your knowledge of the bill and the potential for other families to fall through the cracks?

As an Individual

As we hinted at earlier, self-employed families will obviously not be getting any benefits from this bill. Again, in terms of what the solution is, that's far outside of my scope. It's an insurmountable obstacle for most families. I'm not sure how many of you, if any, have been self-employed, but most of us aren't raking it in. Getting back to work.... Like I said, I was privileged, but a lot of that privilege was community members dropping off groceries because we didn't have food.

A lot of people are privileged enough to have community support, but not everyone does. For a lot of families, whether they are new to Canada or they have just recently relocated to a city within Canada, the only supports that exist for them right now are community supports, so if they don't have that community, they just don't have support.