Yes.
Thank you, Chair and committee, for the honour of appearing before you today. My name is Danyelle Kaluski, she/her, and I am the co-founder and CEO of the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Centre in Calgary, Alberta.
I am also a bereaved parent. Fourteen years ago, I experienced a stillbirth, and in the midst of that loss, in the fog of the grief, shock and devastation, one of my first thoughts was, what happens to my leave? What happens now?
I consider myself fortunate. Because my loss was a stillbirth, I was covered under EI's maternity benefits. I was able to confirm easily that I had 17 weeks of leave, yet it was not nearly long enough. At the time, it provided me some comfort, but I will never forget that moment of uncertainty, the fear that, on top of everything I was carrying, I might also have to fight for the time I needed to grieve my child. Not every parent has this protection, and that is what this bill closes—that gap.
Over the past seven years, the organization I co-founded has supported more than 20,000 families across Canada. We walk alongside families experiencing miscarriage, stillbirth, NICU loss, SIDS and infant death. We see this every day. I could tell you one story, but, in truth, I could tell you thousands—of parents sitting in NICUs, waiting, while their babies fight for their lives; of families waking up to a silence that was never supposed to be there.
These families are in profound trauma. They are not sleeping. They are planning a funeral instead of planning a first birthday. Grief in those early weeks is not background noise. It is all-consuming. It affects the ability to think, to function, to get through a day. This is not a personal weakness. This is the reality of grief, yet under the current law, when a child dies during a parental leave, the leave ends. Parents are required to file a new claim, submit reports and prove eligibility, or return to work before they are anywhere near ready. A parent who has just buried their baby is being asked to navigate government paperwork. This is trauma layered on trauma, and it causes real, lasting harm.
This bill does something simple and deeply humane. It says, “You don't need to prove anything. Your leave continues. Your benefits continue. No new claim. No report. No call to Service Canada in the depths of grief.” It removes an administrative burden from people who have nothing left to give. This bill costs the government very little, but for families, it changes everything.
I'm here on behalf of families we have supported and on behalf of parents who are grieving right now somewhere in Canada. They're wondering how they're going to survive this. When a child dies, parenting doesn't stop. They're still parents, still loving, still grieving, yet under the current system, the moment that child dies, the law no longer sees them as a parent. It is a wound on top of that loss. This bill starts the change. It says, “You are still a parent, and we will treat you like one.”
Thank you.