Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise in the House today to talk about how we have enhanced employment insurance.
The employment insurance program is one of the pillars of our social safety net. We are taking measures to ensure that it continues to serve workers and employers in a spirit of fairness and compassion.
Generally speaking, EI benefits are extremely effective. They fulfill the purpose for which they were created. They provide support for Canadians who are looking for a job, working to improve their skills, dealing with an illness or preparing to become a parent or caregiver. However, Canadian jobs and Canadian families are changing. This means that the program must change as well.
As a result, we are committed to improving the employment insurance program so that it continues to serve people. Part of our government's commitment to Canadian workers includes expanding the EI sickness benefit from 15 to 26 weeks. This commitment was welcomed by the Canadian Cancer Society which said:
The proposed extension would support Canadians who have been diagnosed with cancer and need to take time away from work to seek treatment.
In addition, our commitment to expand EI sickness benefits from 15 to 26 weeks matches the recommendations from the MS Society of Canada and the Community Unemployed Help Centre that were brought forward at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
We have already worked hard to make improvements to the program. Let me detail a few of these now.
In January 2017 we shortened the employment insurance waiting period from two weeks to one week. The goal of this change was to ease the financial strain on claimants, and I am proud to say that we reached that goal. By October 2019 about five million claimants had benefited from the reduced waiting period.
Another change we made is helping to make the El program more flexible. Eligible pregnant workers are now able to receive employment insurance maternity benefits earlier, up to 12 weeks before their due date. This gives women more leeway to consider their personal, health and workplace circumstances as they decide when to start their maternity leave. As of December 2018, about 8,000 workers had made use of this new flexibility.
We know how challenging it can be to raise a family. That is why we improved the employment insurance parental benefits. Since December 2017 parents have been able to choose a longer parental leave at a lower benefit rate. It turns out that a lot of parents are taking advantage of this option. As of December 2018 approximately 32,000 parents had chosen the extended parental benefit option.
To further demonstrate the government's commitment to parents, the employment insurance parental sharing benefit was launched in March 2019. Its main objective is to promote greater gender equality in the home and workplace by encouraging parents to share parental leave.
More precisely, it offers an additional five weeks of employment insurance standard parental benefits reserved for a second parent. This approach is designed to create an incentive for all parents to take some leave when welcoming a new child and to share equally in the responsibility of raising their children.
There is also the family caregiver benefit. Our government knows that many Canadians have to take time off from work to care for a loved one. We wanted to help them as well. That is why we made changes to make employment insurance benefits for caregivers more flexible, inclusive and easier to access. These changes came into effect in December 2017.
Caregivers can access up to 15 weeks of benefits to provide care to an adult family member with a critical illness or injury.
We have also enhanced the benefits available to parents when they provide care or support to a critically ill child by extending eligibility to include additional family members who may provide care to the child. Also, in order to improve access to EI caregiving benefits, both medical doctors and nurse practitioners are now able to sign medical certificates.
As I mentioned, the Government of Canada is looking for ways to improve the EI program so that it meets the needs of Canadian workers. That is why changes were made to improve the sickness benefit. As of August 2018, the EI working while on claim rules were extended to EI maternity and sickness benefits, including those for eligible self-employed persons. This measure provides Canadians who are dealing with an illness or injury with greater flexibility to manage their return to work and keep more of their EI benefits.
Also, EI claimants in receipt of parental benefits, compassionate care benefits or the EI family caregiver benefit can switch to the sickness benefit if they become ill or injured while on claim.
Finally, I want to mention one more change to the EI program. I am talking about our new EI skills boost measure, which was created to better support claimants who have lost their job after several years in the workplace. Through skills boost we are providing claimants with more opportunities to take full-time training while continuing to receive employment insurance benefits. The promotion and expansion of employment insurance flexibilities for training will encourage more claimants to upgrade their skills while receiving benefits.
I also want to mention some important changes the Government of Canada recently made to the Canada Labour Code. These changes provide better work-life balance and strengthen labour standards protections in federally regulated private sector workplaces. Changes include new leaves such as personal leave and leave for victims of family violence, improved access to existing leave and general holiday pay, improved annual vacation entitlements and leave for traditional indigenous practices. These changes came into force on September 1, 2019, and exemplify the flexibility and work-life balance we are trying to achieve for Canadian workers.
The reality is that families and workplaces are changing, so EI must also change.
Employment insurance needs to keep up with the modern realities of today's labour market. It needs to continue to serve workers, and it needs to work well for employers too.
It is all a question of balance.
Giving employees flexibility is good for our economy as all of Canada benefits.