Stakeholders Call for Expanding Scope of Proposed Pregnancy Loss Leave

Bill 17, which seeks to change the province’s labor standards on bereavement, will require employers to grant up to three days unpaid leave without penalty once a year to a bereaved employee. a family member who requests it.

The changes made to labor standards will apply in particular to parents during a miscarriage or during the delivery of a stillborn child. The leave is also open to those who would have been the adoptive or replacement parents.

The founder and president of the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Center in Calgary, Aditi Loveridge, however believes that this definition is too restrictive. It therefore asks the government to modify the terms used to replace them with pregnancy loss.

Miscarriages, cases of stillbirths, abortions or termination of pregnancy for medical reasons all deserve to be covered by law, [comme] all pregnancy lossshe explains.

If I go to see my employer to tell him that I have cancer, he has no right to ask me what type of cancer it is. So I think this law [qui touche les pertes de grossesse] should demand the same respect.

She would also like the leave offered to be longer than three days. She claims that these three days are not enough to recover from the psychological and physiological effects of pregnancy loss.

She believes that a three-week leave would be more realistic to allow affected parents to recover.

Opposition wants amended bill

The Minister of Labor and Immigration and responsible for the bill, Kaycee Madu, maintains that nothing prevents him from requesting the leave provided for by this bill in the event of abortion, in particular.

Despite this assurance from the minister, the official opposition critic for women’s and LGBTQ2+ issues, New Democrat Janis Irwin, wants the law to use more specific language.

Right now the bill only talks about miscarriage and stillbirthshe explains. We want the definition of pregnancy loss to be expanded to include terminations for medical reasons and abortions.

The New Democratic Party intends to propose amendments to Bill 17 during the debates in parliamentary committee.

In an email, Minister Madu’s press officer, Roy Dallmann, maintains that all proposed amendments will be considered.

Unpaid leave is a barrier, some say

In its current state, Bill 17 also raises eyebrows for Edmonton Whitemud NDP MP Rakhi Pancholi.

The one who lost two fat before having her first child says she is privileged to have been entitled to a week of paid sick leave after her second miscarriage.

However, she believes that other women, especially those who work for minimum wage, are not so lucky.

I don’t know if they will be comfortable with the idea of ​​going to their employer to ask for unpaid days offshe notes. It could be the difference between putting food on the table and fasting.

Still, the NDP thinks it’s more important to assure grieving parents that they can keep their jobs than to demand that the leave be paid.

Aditi Loveridge also believes that bereavement leave should be paid and offered for each loss, rather than once a year.

With information from Michelle Bellefontaine