Status of Women committee  The EI program does not provide job protection; I think that's important to realize. Job protection is dependent on provincial labour standards, so “freeing the benefits”—putting in a separate thing—isn't going to affect the job protection. The job protection is at the provincial

Status of Women committee  Some of the criticism of how the current maternity and parental system works is that it does tie itself to employment. As some people pointed out, it is employment of a certain type. I believe the original motivation for integrating into the EI system is that childbirth does crea

Status of Women committee  The only quick thing to say is that you have to be very careful about how you structure premiums for this. It won't work as an insurance program, if you simply allow people who are self-employed to voluntarily make premium payments and to then collect benefits. What you want is e

Status of Women committee  Unfortunately, the data we are using are from the national longitudinal survey of children and youth. It is not primarily a health survey; it's a survey of children's development. In Canada we lack a large-scale children's health survey. As a consequence, the number of ailments

Status of Women committee  I'll probably be better prepared to answer that question in a year. Kevin and I are currently working on exactly that project. The Quebec reforms offer a couple of really good opportunities. One, as has already been mentioned, is this period of time reserved for fathers. One huge

Status of Women committee  I'm wrapping.

Status of Women committee  I'll leave it there.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm happy to be here. In the area you're investigating, the area I know about is the impact of the maternity and parental leave provisions of the EI system, so that's primarily what I'll talk to. The research I've done in this area