Finance committee  My purpose today is to speak to the changes occurring as a result of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2017, specifically changes to the maternity and parental leave benefits from the Employment Insurance Act and Canada Labour Code. For those of you who are not famili

Human Resources committee  Absolutely, it's more important. I really like welding, and when I get my feet again I would like to go back, but my son is the absolute priority.

Human Resources committee  I would say that you should maybe consider as a separate issue from employment insurance itself. If it's a completely separate program, then you continue to qualify for EI programs on their own merits, as they currently are, and take maternity leave away from that and create a di

Human Resources committee  I was pretty lucky; I had a very healthy pregnancy. The only issues I had were in my third trimester because I'm poor. I had vitamin deficiency problems and started getting muscle spasms in my back, but since I was on leave from my employer, I had medical benefits that covered th

Human Resources committee  He's 22 months.

Human Resources committee  I don't know. I don't work with money. Another idea could be having a website designed where people would input their unique situations and suggestions would be output for a path to take. Maybe that's just a one-off cost and then people could interact with it on their own. I don

Human Resources committee  No.

Human Resources committee  Yes, I would like to. I addressed in my speech the fact that the gap with no income and my benefits getting cut off when my son was really young threw me off course. I ended up using the Ontario Works program, which was another deduction in income. All of that has created a lot

Human Resources committee  For the marine industry you don't need a ticket.

Human Resources committee  Because it's in the water it falls under different rules. I was very much into boatbuilding. I really liked that job.

Human Resources committee  I did read up on the preventative withdrawal program. I very much liked how it even followed the woman back to work and protected her right to breastfeed. I thought it was a very thorough and thoughtful program. I would be back to work today if I had been a recipient of preventat

Human Resources committee  Do you mean specifically with the EI program?

Human Resources committee  One of the most striking things I experienced through this is that I didn't actually interact with a person when I filed for my benefits. Nobody sat down with me and said, “Let's look at your unique situation. Have you considered this option or that option? If you take this road,

Human Resources committee  Sure. I fell into welding by accident; I actually tried to be a carpenter. I moved to Wolfe Island and I met the president of MetalCraft Marine on the island. Hitchhiking is really popular on the island, and he picked me up one day and we started chatting and he encouraged me to

Human Resources committee  This was his take on it. He encouraged me to apply, and I did. He said they'd be very interested in training me, which they did. I started out as a marine outfitter. They paid me $14 an hour, and I got annual cost-of-living raise. They raised the pay once a year for everybody—I