The conservative leader, Erin O’Toole, promises to let new parents earn up to $ 1,000 a month at work without reducing their maternity or parental leave benefits.
This promise comes on top of a rhetoric that is addressed explicitly to women voters; the day before, O’Toole promised to increase support for parents after miscarriage or the death of a child – as part of “compassionate conservatism”.
Campaigning in Carp, near Ottawa, Monday, one week before the election, Mr. O’Toole recalled that current federal benefits allow parents to receive up to 55% of their employment income, for a maximum from $ 595 per week. The Conservative leader believes that many low income Canadians cannot afford such a cut in income.
As part of a “more compassionate” employment insurance plan, he promises that new parents could supplement these benefits with income from remote or part-time work. This would allow parents to earn up to $ 1,000 per month without affecting their federal benefits, after which every dollar earned would result in a 50-cent reduction in benefits.
Quebec has its own parental insurance plan.
“What we are announcing today is in addition to what is currently planned in the system,” said O’Toole, as toddlers bounced in inflatable play modules behind him. “What we want is for our EI system to be modernized and more flexible to meet the needs of Canadians, especially women who want to keep a foothold in the job market.
“We are modernizing our employment insurance system, it’s time to help families […] especially low income families. “
Mr. O’Toole also pledged to expand the Canada Child Benefit so that it begins in the seventh month of pregnancy rather than when the baby is born.
Lindsay Tedds, associate professor of economics at the University of Calgary, believes federal parties must indeed work on more substantial reform of parental benefits. “Our EI system lacks flexibility – including being able to earn extra income while still getting EI,” Tedds said.
She suggests a system based on hours worked rather than weeks, in order to facilitate the return to work or to adapt more easily to part-time work at the end of pregnancy and after childbirth.
“Under an hour-based system, you can go back to work part-time while also getting your leave (maternity or parental), so it’s a much more gradual adjustment,” she argued. .
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