Madame Speaker, we are dealing with a very important issue raised by the leader of the official opposition in his bill, the issue of parental benefits. However, the tool that he proposes is not at all adequate.
The main problem is not the refund of costs through a tax credit, but the issue of access to those benefits. This issue not only affects Canada, but also other countries.
Parental leave is the result of a long fight that began in the early 20th century. One of the first protections voted by the International Labour Organization in 1919 was the Maternity Protection Convention.
That standard was revised in 1952, providing for a minimum of 12 weeks, while recommending that the length be extended to 14 weeks. In 1998, 120 countries granted maternity leave. In under 20 years, such leave has been extended to fathers and same-sex partners. If we look south of the border, the United States does not offer parental leave, which forces many young families to make enormous sacrifices. They choose to return to work just a few days after the birth or adoption of their child because they do not have the means to pay for leave. That is a model that we should stay as far away from as possible. I am proud to be in a country, or in a province, actually, that offers parental leave.
If, in the United States, only rich families can afford to have one parent stay at home to take care of their baby, in Canada we also have a corresponding problem: accessibility. The main problem with parental leave benefits is that they are difficult to access. The priority if we want to fix the parental leave system should be to improve accessibility by lowering the minimum number of hours parents need to work to qualify for benefits.
This becomes clear when we compare the ratio of people in Quebec and in Canada who have access to parental leave benefits. In Quebec, 84% of new mothers benefit from parental leave. In Canada, that number is only 64%. One-third of Canadian women cannot access parental leave. That is why making the system more inclusive should be a priority.
In every province and territory, including Quebec until 2006, parents must accumulate 600 hours of paid work, regardless of what their salary is, to qualify for paid leave to take care of their child. These benefits are paid monthly and cover 55% of the salary.
Think of how that compares with Quebec, where any parent who earns $2,000 or more qualifies for paid leave. If a man or woman earns minimum wage, he or she is eligible for parental leave after 178 hours of work. In other words, Quebec requires less than one-third of the hours required in the rest of Canada. In Quebec, parental benefits make the lives of parents a little bit easier financially speaking, since they can count on monthly payments of between 55% and 75% of their income, depending on the number of weeks requested, with the maximum insurable earnings being $74,000.
As my colleagues have already said, unfortunately, this bill will help the members of our society who need it least. The tax credit will help those in the upper tax brackets and high-income earners, while low-income parents who have difficulty making ends meet will not stand to benefit hardly at all.
The provincial law helps less fortunate families and the effect is noticeable, since there is a considerable gap between Quebec and the other provinces when it comes to the use of parental leave.
Let us look at the case of mothers with a total household income of less than $30,000. A lot more of them take paid leave in Quebec than in the other provinces and territories.
Based on the 2013 data, researchers Sophie Mathieu, Lindsey McKay, and Andrea Doucet found that 85% of low-income women in Quebec had access to paid maternity leave compared to 44% of women in the rest of Canada.
The riding of Salaberry—Suroît, which I proudly represent, is poorer than the Canadian average. The average household employment income in my riding is $35,000 compared to the Canadian average of $46,000. If we look at women's income alone, 57% of women live on less than $30,000 a year. I do not think that my riding is unique in this regard. What good is a tax credit when you earn less than $30,000?
Many of these women, whether they live in Beauharnois or the Prairies, do not earn enough money to benefit from the Conservatives' proposed tax credit.
I will wrap up this point by sharing another quote from those researchers in Le Devoir, to show, once again, that the Conservatives should have used the Quebec method as a model.
The QPIP is fairer, since there is just a 10-percentage-point difference in the use of maternity leave among women whose family income is below $30,000 [which corresponds to 85%] and those whose income is higher than $60,000...This gap is more than 30 percentage points in the nine other Canadian provinces (44% of low-income Canadian mothers had access to maternity leave...).
This is why the NDP is proposing that we increase the benefits from 55% to 60%, which would help more Canadian families.
Another point we should look at is the federal system, which goes up to 61 weeks at 33% of the person's pay. The number of weeks is very generous. Would there be a potential for a gradual return to work, during which wages would be topped up and we could ensure a smooth transition to day care for our little babies?
Generally speaking, under the federal system, if an individual works while receiving EI parental benefits, he or she could earn the greater of up to $50 a week or 25% of their weekly benefits. After that, any amount earned is deducted in full from the amount of benefits. It is impossible to live on 33% of one's salary if the claimant has an average income. Furthermore, if the income allowed is 25% of benefits, which represents 33% of earnings, this really hinders a gradual return to work.
In closing, this tax credit will be very costly and will not help the families who really need it the most. A conservative estimate of the cost is $850 million, or about 20% of the cost of buying a pipeline to British Columbia. Why spend so much money on a tax credit that completely misses the mark? If the government wants to improve the parental leave plan, the allocation of resources should address income inequality and improve access to benefits for those who need them most.
In conclusion, the NDP has presented historic measures that would help parents much more than a tax credit for EI benefits. A better way to help new parents on parental leave would be, for example, to increase the income replacement rate.
The NDP is proposing to raise the rate from 55% to 60%. This measure would benefit all parents on leave, not just those who earn enough to pay taxes. This would be a much easier way to fix the situation described by the Conservatives, the solution being to increase the available income of new parents on leave.
Parents returning to work desperately need affordable child care. If we want to allocate substantial public resources to new parents, it is imperative that child care be part of the conversation. Affordable child care is an extremely important issue to Canadian families, so making a tax credit the priority makes no sense.
By lowering the threshold for eligibility for parental leave, we would also be helping more young parents, people in precarious jobs, and part-time workers to qualify for parental leave. The current threshold of 600 hours makes it very hard to qualify. Lowering the threshold would allow more parents to access the system.
If we consider that it is in children's best interest to spend quality time with their parents, especially in the early years, if we call children the apple of our eye, if we say we want to give our children every chance of receiving love and attention and of developing strong bonds with their parents, then I think we need to make it easier for new parents to take parental leave, instead of giving additional resources to people who do not need them. We must not be unfair to people of more modest means who are struggling to make ends meet. In closing, I hope the Conservatives will change their mind and offer solutions that are a little fairer for all Canadians.