Finance committee  It's prorated. The total amount available is roughly the same.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. Parental benefits are for the care of a child. Biological or birth parents, as well as adoptive parents, are eligible for those benefits. The maternity benefit is uniquely available to birth mothers to recover from pregnancy and childbirth. Maternity

Finance committee  As I said earlier, the parental component is for the care of the child, but the purpose of maternity, under EI as well as the labour code, as well as other sorts of protections for pregnant workers, is distinct. It's for the mother. That's why we separate the two. However, recen

Human Resources committee  In terms of the EI sickness benefit, medical doctors, specialists, nurse practitioners, psychologists practising in their field and some other eligible medical professions—it's clarified on our website and in our rules—are able to sign the medical certificate.

Human Resources committee  I understand about the challenges in the health care system and access to it in rural and remote communities. It's also something we heard during our consultations on EI benefits previously. That's part of the reason that we made the change to allow medical certificates for the c

Human Resources committee  To collect that kind of information we would have to go through a privacy assessment perspective in order to change the nature of the program and the application forms. I would note that when we change application forms, it creates new obligations on medical doctors, nurse prac

Human Resources committee  Thank you. You made a comment about the steps that parents have to take to report a death. I would just like to add that there is a process currently for any family member to report a death to Service Canada, whether it's a parent, child, or whatnot. That's necessary because yo

Human Resources committee  We don't know the reasons for EI sickness benefits claims; however, we did consult with the medical community in developing the medical forms, the medical certificate that is required for the EI caregiving benefits.

Human Resources committee  In terms of what is offered by other countries, we quite frequently look at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It publishes annual reports on different types of employment, family benefits and leaves. All OECD countries offer some kind of maternal or pare

Human Resources committee  I would argue that Canada is one of the countries that has quickly come to recognize and provide paid leave, paid supports through the employment insurance program for the care of a critically ill or injured family member, as well as to provide support to family members who are a

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.

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