Human Resources committee  It does very often, partly because of the wage gap. If you're going to forego an income, very often the choice is to forego the lower income. More often now, that is the male income. More and more men are taking parental leave, but still the overwhelming majority, 74%, of compass

Human Resources committee  Sure. Right now it's actually men and women. Fewer than two out of five workers qualify for EI right now, for regular benefits. It's again because women more often work part time. When they work full time, they work fewer hours. On average, women work 30 hours a week, and they te

Human Resources committee  I think that's a great question. We represent such a diverse group of people that I don't think I could speak for what any of them are doing. My role is as an economist, so I'm actually not often in touch with what's going on at the ground level. I do know that union locals very

Human Resources committee  I would agree. I noticed this as well, that after a missing child is found, the parents have 14 days; after a critically ill child dies, the parents have until the end of the week. I think the labour standard in Canada for leave to grieve is only three days, so that would mean

Human Resources committee  Right, and that is part of the weakness in the employment insurance system as it stands right now. If you're making more money, like $60,000 a year, a replacement rate of $485 a week might be a severe cut to your standard of living and you may not be able to take employment ins

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. This is definitely an improvement, and it's an improvement in two ways over the six weeks. The first is that for the six weeks of compassionate care, you needed to have a note from your doctor saying that the family member was terminally ill and was expected to die wi

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. With the example of parental leave, that is 35 weeks long, and that has been shown to be very effective in maintaining labour force attachment, for mothers particularly. Families can take the time to focus on their family, what's important there and what needs to be d

Human Resources committee  Again, I think that will reduce stress for people, because that's a stressful situation: to be sick when you have a small child. What would be a further improvement is allowing regular benefits to be stackable with parental leave. When they return to work or if they lose their

Human Resources committee  That's correct. Thank you for your question. Requiring any level of income earned in the year before is really problematic. It's delivered outside the employment insurance system. It's not primarily about labour market attachment; it's primarily about supporting families during

Human Resources committee  Okay. To specify why I'm bringing this up, it is because the parents of critically ill children will need to qualify for EI, so they will fall under these same weaknesses. These are weaknesses in the EI system that will affect parents of critically ill children when they need to

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. I'm here on behalf of the Canadian Labour Congress, which is the national voice of 3.3 million workers across Canada. They bring together Canada's national and international unions, along with provincial and territorial federations of labour—130 district lab