With pleasure, Madam Chair.
As you know, about 250,000 workers in Quebec, men and women, work in areas under federal jurisdiction. The pregnant women in that number are not eligible for precautionary cessation of work, which is available in Quebec through the CSST and allows them to receive 90% of their salary for the entire time they are away from work. Currently, if they have to leave work because of a danger to their health or the health of their child, women working in areas under federal jurisdiction may claim employment insurance, which provides only 55% of their salary, and only for 15 weeks.Those women therefore fall into a crack in the Labour Code that can be easily addressed, because people working in areas under federal jurisdiction already pay premiums to the CSST for accidents that may occur at work.
They therefore already pay an amount of money that makes them eligible to receive 90% of their salary if they are injured at work. But that is not the case if they are pregnant. This is only a matter of the two levels of government coming to an arrangement. The minister of Labour recently told us that the government of Quebec needs to rectify the situation. It is ready to do so. The National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution to regularize the situation that the women are in. So Quebec is ready to make the arrangements with the Government of Canada to make sure that all women have the right to precautionary cessation of work on the same basis.
It is just a matter of an understanding between governments. It is not very complicated to bring about and the government will pay nothing for it. The workers will actually pay a minimal difference of about 3¢, I believe, to become eligible for CSST benefits in the case of precautionary cessation of work.