Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here today and to rise in the House to talk about the employment insurance program and, more specifically, about maternity benefits, extended parental benefits and parental sharing benefits.
Becoming a parent can be a stressful time for many Canadians. The weeks leading up to the birth can be fraught with nerves and worry at the best of times. In other complicated cases, mothers-to-be may be on bed rest or even hospitalized. Whatever the case, we want to give Canadians the flexibility to choose the option that best meets their needs.
Our employment insurance program is robust and covers a wide range of life situations during which Canadians may need financial support, and maternity benefits is certainly one of them.
We understand how hard it can be for hard-working families to balance their career and their family responsibilities. This is why we have done a lot for parents so far. In December 2017, we launched the extended parental benefit, helping parents across the country to find the right work-family balance. Parents of newborn or newly adopted children are now able to choose between two options. The first option is to receive 35 weeks of parental benefits paid at the standard rate of 55% over 12 months. The second option is to receive 61 weeks of parental benefits for an extended period of time, corresponding to 33% of their average weekly income. They may in fact be paid over a period of 18 months.
In March 2019, we launched the parental sharing benefit. This benefit helps support parents, including adoptive and same-sex parents, in sharing a more equal distribution of the joy and the responsibility of raising their children. It does so by offering two options: providing an additional five weeks of employment insurance parental benefits when parents agree to share standard parental benefits; or providing an additional eight weeks for those who choose to extend parental benefit options. The increased flexibility will support parents in their ability to spend quality time in raising their children.
In addition, eligible mothers are now able to receive maternity benefits earlier, up to 12 weeks before their due date. This is more flexible than the benefits provided under the previous government, which limited benefits to eight weeks before the expected delivery date. I am proud that our government can help Canadians when they need it most.
Since 2015, we have embarked on a journey to modernize the program so that it reflects today's realities. One of those realities is gender equality. As a side note, I would like to mention that since 2018, the fourth week of September is now Gender Equality Week in Canada. This has been an opportunity for people to celebrate the progress we have made in advancing gender equality in Canada while reflecting on the work that remains to be done to make sure that everyone, regardless of gender, could reach their full potential.
Gender equality week is now enshrined into law, which is a very good thing. It is a good thing because it reminds us to celebrate our progress as a society, but it is also a week to reflect on the challenges and work that still lie ahead.
I mention this today because even if Canadian women are among the most educated women in the world, they are still the least likely to participate in the labour market and most likely to work part time. On average, women in Canada earn 87 cents for every dollar earned by men on an annual basis. Canadian women are under-represented in positions of leadership, and businesses in Canada are overwhelmingly owned by men.
It has been estimated that adding more women to the workforce could boost the level of Canada's GDP by as much as 4%. Providing Canadians with the opportunity to realize their full potential is not just the right thing to do: It is the smart thing to do for our economy.
Now, what does gender equality have to do with employment insurance maternity and parental benefits? The answer is, everything. In 2017-18, women represented 84% of all parental benefits claims. This indicates that child care duties continue to fall heavily on mothers.
Our government is committed to making evidence-based decisions that take into consideration the impacts of policies on all Canadians, and it fully defends the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
If we are serious about gender equality, we have to integrate it into everything we do. That is why as government, we applied gender-based analysis plus to the decisions that Canadians have elected us to make.
Equality between Canadian women and men will lead to greater prosperity, not just for women and their families, but for all Canadians. Gender equality is a principle that has guided this government in all our budgets. It has allowed us to take important steps to a more prosperous Canada. It is what drives the employment insurance parental sharing benefit. It is intended to support young families and encourage gender equality in the workplace and at home. This benefit helps to support a more equal distribution of home and work responsibilities.
As I mentioned earlier, it provides an additional five weeks of EI parental benefits when parents, including adoptive and same-sex parents, agree to share parental leave, or an additional eight weeks for those who choose the extended parental benefit option.
Since it was launched, more than 32,000 parents established a claim for extended parental benefits, higher than the anticipated 20,000 claims per year.
As an interesting fact, in Quebec, 81% of spouses or partners of recent mothers claimed or intended to claim parental benefits in 2017, compared with only 12% in the rest of Canada. In large part, this is due to the Quebec parental insurance plan, the QPIP. This “use it or lose it” 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.
Equitable parental leave may lead to equitable hiring practices, reducing conscious and unconscious discrimination against women by employers and reducing stigma against men for taking parental leave. This benefit has been enforced since March 2019. As many as 97,000 Canadian parents are expected to claim the parental sharing benefit annually.
In closing, I would like to say that for the employment insurance program to continue successfully and play a major role, the government has to continuously make the program more adaptable, more flexible, more inclusive and more accessible.
We are committed to doing so, and continue to listen to all Canadians. Their preoccupations are ours. We took action to further the well-being of Canadians and we will continue to do so. By promoting equality, our government will help to create long-term prosperity for all Canadians.