Finance committee  When we talk about a family member in the EI Act, it's currently limited to the immediate family as well as extended family members. It is a long list including grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

Finance committee  If the person is an EI-eligible person and meets the definition, yes, they could be taking care of an older family member.

Finance committee  In terms of EI eligibility, to qualify for all these special benefits—maternity, parental, compassionate care, sickness—you need to have a minimum of 600 hours in the past year, or you could be a self-employed person who has voluntarily opted into the EI program with minimum inco

Finance committee  Thank you for your question. Concerning the choice of parental leave, particularly parental benefits, it is done at the beginning when applying for benefits. Parents must choose one or the other option. Both must choose the same option to qualify for the same total number of wee

Finance committee  Yes, that's it. Parents always have the right to return to work earlier, but as soon as they have chosen an option, it is this maximum number of weeks and that replacement rate that is granted, and that does not change. It is 55% or 33%.

Finance committee  If they made this choice at the start of the benefits, yes. I need to mention two things about the return to work. Depending on the particular circumstances of the family, the parent may be able to defer the benefits until later, but during the benefit period. If a parent return

Human Resources committee  First of all, we're here for the employment insurance program, and our remarks and our questions will be focused on explaining how those benefits work. I think it's important to note, as Andrew said, that there are a number of different EI benefits that support parents, that su

Human Resources committee  For the maternity benefit, which is intended for pregnant or nursing mothers after giving birth, that benefit does continue to be paid, because the intent of the benefit is to support the mother's recovery, so if the infant child dies while the mother is receiving maternity benef

Human Resources committee  I think it's important to note that there is no specific benefit related to bereavement under the employment insurance program. We've noted what the circumstances are if the care recipient dies, or in this case, if the child dies. Benefits do end if there are parental benefits, a

Human Resources committee  I think it's important to acknowledge the difficult circumstances parents face. Grieving is a very difficult and long process. The way the employment insurance benefits work, while the parental benefits end at the end of the week of the death of the child, perhaps it's important

Human Resources committee  I would add that there are different kinds of leave that may be available to parents. Under the Canada Labour Code, for employees of the federally regulated private sector, there is a bereavement leave currently available. It's three days paid leave immediately after the death of

Human Resources committee  Thank you for acknowledgement of the difficult circumstance of your colleague.

Human Resources committee  For EI sickness benefits, we do not collect data or ask the claimant the reason that precipitated their claim, so we don't have any data on how many of those claims are a result of bereavement or of losing their child. We simply know what their return-to-work date would be on the

Human Resources committee  As I mentioned earlier, we don't collect data on the reason, but I can comment that the average duration of EI sickness benefits in 2016-17, the last fiscal year, was 10 weeks. However, we also know that approximately 37% of all EI sickness claimants do exhaust, or in other words

Human Resources committee  We unfortunately don't have that information specifically for that subgroup. These are all very important questions. We are always looking to learn more about trends and reasons for EI sickness claims, so we note your comment and your question.