International Women’s Day, One Day Late

This is one day late, but I wanted to share it. Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and I spent the day reflecting on my experience as a woman, and the challenges that I feel women (and men) in our society still face.

I was born in the mid 70s, to hippies who rejected the cultural mainstream. My father wore long hair and a long beard, and worked as a self-trained goldsmith. He made jewelry in the back of our house and sold it out of a room in the front. My mother left her job at a bank to stay home when I was born. In my house the adults chopped wood for heat and held meditation circles, and until I was almost 9 years old nobody held a ‘real’ job.

My parents wanted my sister and me to believe we could be anything we wanted to be. In the late 70s and early 80s it was a popular message, and a lot of TV shows reinforced the idea. There was a common storyline that went like this: a hapless man is looking for ‘Dr. Pat Smith’, only to discover that the woman he assumed was the receptionist is actually the good doctor. Hilarity ensues. We learned not to judge a book by its cover, and that women could be doctors just as well as nurses.

I believed it. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do something based solely on my gender. I think most of us got the message, because you don’t see Dr. Pat Smith on TV anymore. She’s no longer considered noteworthy, although I am tremendously grateful for her example.

In high school I did just as well in math and science as English and French. After high school I attended engineering school, where I was surprised to find that women made up only 20% of the students in my classes. I never felt singled out or discriminated against, but it is hard not to notice when the gender numbers are overwhelmingly skewed against you.

I worked as an engineer, in a male-dominated environment, for 5 years before my daughter was born. I was treated with the same respect as my male colleagues, and I generally liked my job. The work environment was comfortable and I was paid well. We had team-building activities and treats on Wednesdays and flex time. My co-workers’ offices were filled with math textbooks and photos of their children, and there were company-wide policies ensuring that all employees were treated fairly.

Things changed a bit once I was pregnant. People joked that I was leaving them to have a baby. I didn’t laugh. I wondered why my decision to procreate implied that I was abandoning my post, but my male colleagues’ similar decisions did not. I wondered why I was asked if I had to work, and my husband was not.

I used all of the year-long maternity leave available to me. When I returned to work I negotiated a part-time schedule, in an attempt to find some kind of balance. I understood that working less and telecommuting would affect my career trajectory, at least for a time. I was willing to sacrifice some of my professional advancement, though – kids grow quickly and I didn’t want to miss it.

Still, questions nagged at the back of my mind. Why was I naturally the one who worked less (and now only sporadically) once the babies came? Would I be able to recover from my time on the mommy track? How come it was so hard to find quality childcare? And why don’t more fathers take advantage of flexible work policies or parental leave?

Over my lifetime Dr. Pat Smith and I have seen gender roles shift. Pretty much any career path is open to a woman if she chooses to pursue it. In my home housework is evenly distributed, and my husband does nearly all of my laundry. We do our best to approach parenting with gender neutrality. I don’t feel that the balance of power swings one way or the other.

And yet the glass ceiling still exists, especially for mothers. While parental leave is available to most fathers in Canada, only 11% of them use it. It’s still uncommon to for men to work alternative schedules to care for children. Working mothers still sometimes hear statements like, “Why even have kids if you’re not going to raise them?” Women bear the brunt of child-rearing, and face most of the conflict over balancing career and family.

I wish that everyone had better access to family-friendly work policies, and that there wasn’t a stigma for using them. I suspect many men feel the same way. There are dads who would enjoy being at-home parents, or taking one day a week off to volunteer in their kid’s classroom. Our current system does not exactly work perfectly for anyone.

On International Women’s Day I am so grateful for my feminist foremothers, who fought so that I could be an engineer and have access to birth control and maternity leave and daycare. I am grateful to live in a country where my rights are recognized and my standard of living is not significantly diminished because of my gender. But I am reflecting on the work there is still to do. I am considering how I can contribute to creating a world that is more equitable for everyone, which better celebrates diversity and variety in life paths and choices. That is the world that I hope my children and grandchildren will inherit.

Is Formula Marketing a Problem?

I am a nursing mom. Over four years and two kids I have experienced many benefits of breastfeeding first-hand. Nursing my babies has been a very positive thing for me, on the whole. Because of that experience I believe in the value of breastfeeding. And because I believe in the value of breastfeeding I’m generally opposed to formula marketing as it exists today. Logic dictates that if we want to support something, we shouldn’t promote the alternative.

But the other day as I was recycling yet another brochure from a formula company I thought about my own history. When Hannah was born and she wouldn’t nurse they sent us home from the hospital with a couple of cans of formula, and we bought some of our own. Within two days she was nursing and we didn’t use the remaining 80% of our formula supply. If you really want to breastfeed, will you just disregard the ads? I know that I did, for sure. Does formula marketing really convince people to stop breastfeeding?

So I decided to do some research, to see what information there was, if any. Is formula marketing effective? Are people who are inundated with promotional materials and free samples more likely to use formula?

Here are some results that I found:

The evidence certainly suggests that formula marketing practices have a negative impact on breastfeeding, while research-based information has a positive impact. It just sort of makes sense because the purpose of marketing is to convince people to use your product. Formula companies are no different than anyone else on this front. They are trying to sell us something.

Of course, it’s our choice whether or not we want to use formula. If you have used it yourself I am not judging you. I think the problem is when it’s not really your choice. In a perfect world every mother would be satisfied with her breastfeeding experience, whatever it looks like. We aren’t living in a perfect world, though. In real life we are bombarded with conflicting information and we encounter problems we didn’t expect. The result is that many moms are not satisfied with their breastfeeding experience at all.

I think that the only possible solution is good breastfeeding support and information at all stages of maternity and infant care. We need to be there to help moms who want to breastfeed but can’t. We need to make sure that we’re not giving out conflicting information or leaving distraught mothers with no one to turn to. We also need to support moms and not make them feel guilty for their choices.

Based on the research and plain common sense unsolicited formula marketing may interfere with breastfeeding. Handing out free formula or promotional materials to all mothers ‘just in case’ sends the message that many moms probably can’t breastfeed. Sponsorship of medical conferences by formula marketers, posters in doctors’ offices, and samples distributed in the hospital lend a medical stamp to that message. And it’s a message that is just not helpful if we want to mothers to receive good breastfeeding information and support.

I know now that I was able to breastfeed Hannah. There was a while there where I didn’t think I could. I don’t believe I’m the only mom who’s felt alone and overwhelmed and didn’t think she could do it. Thankfully I had excellent support from my midwives, who came to my home to help me. If the only information on infant feeding I had was a brochure from a formula company I’m not sure I would have succeeded. And that’s why I think formula marketing is a problem, because it doesn’t contribute to empowering women to make the choices that are best for them. Whatever those choices may be.

Canadian Health Care

I have a guest post running over on Raising My Boychick today! It’s part of the Womanist/Feminist Parenting Primer, conceived by the fabulous Arwyn. After you read my completely non-authoritative primer on Canadian health care, hop on over and read my post, called Talking to Strangers.

I’m not a doctor or a nurse or a phrenologist and I don’t even play one on TV. I’ve never worked in health care other than a brief stint as a candy striper in the early 90s. But I have lived in Canada my whole and entire life, and I drew my first breaths in a Canadian hospital. So I decided to share my own perspective on our health care system, which we call ‘Medicare’. I am at least as qualified as any other random Canadian, after all.

This is not comprehensive, because I am not well versed in the complicated and bureaucratic intricacies. I’m limiting my discussion to what I would call the majority of cases and my personal experience. If you have anything to add based on your own experience please do share it in the comments.

I was prompted to write about Canadian health care when I saw this ad on a website:

As a Canadian this ad sort of shocks me. You see, we speak about the evils of ‘American-style health care’ all the time. During election campaigns politicians accuse each other of wanting to introduce a two-tier medical system that will kill us all. It doesn’t surprise me that they found a Canadian who’s unhappy, we are a country of 30 million people after all. But I think that most of us find this ad surprising given our general assumption that Canadian health care is better than American health care in the vast majority of cases.

So how does Medicare work? The health care system is regulated by the Canada Health Act and administered through the federal and provincial governments. There are slight variations from province to province, but the system remains largely the same across the country because it is required to. Here are the key components:

1. It’s universal – Everyone is required to participate in, and be covered by, Medicare. There is no such thing as being denied coverage because you’re out of network or have a pre-existing condition. There are no private insurers. There is a 3 month waiting period before Medicare coverage starts when you move from province to province, but you’re covered by your previous province during that time. Being uninsured is not something we understand, and it’s not even possible for most Canadians.

2. Publicly administered – Medicare is administered by a public authority in each province and territory. The plans are operated on a not-for-profit basis and the health authorities are accountable to the government.

3. Covers all medically necessary services – In Canada it is illegal to bill directly for a ‘medically necessary’ procedure, anything deemed necessary must be covered under Medicare. Pretty much any services offered by a doctor or hospital are considered medically necessary, such as regular office visits, emergency services, surgery and diagnostic tests. There are no co-pays, user fees, or deductibles. When I visit the doctor or hospital I present my health card and they bill the plan directly, I am completely uninvolved in the process.

4. Low or no premiums – In some provinces individuals do not pay any premiums for health insurance. Here in BC we do pay set medical premiums. The rates are $54 / month for singles, $96 / month for couples and $108 / month for families of 3 or more. If your family income is low you are subsidized in whole or part. If you are employed, your employer generally pays half your premium, so my family of 4 currently pays $54 / month.

Some services are deemed ‘uninsured’ and aren’t covered by Medicare, such as dental care, optometry, prescription medications, cosmetic surgery and naturopathy. Most employers offer an extended health plan to their employees, which covers some portion of selected services. For example, I am reimbursed for a portion of my dental and prescription costs, and I am covered for emergency care if I travel outside of Canada. The premiums for these plans are very low, or may be completely covered by your employer.

Most Canadians are generally satisfied with our system. According to our government in 2005 85% of Canadians were satisfied with the health care they received. And we’re getting good value for our money. In 2005 per capita medical costs in Canada were $3003 USD compared to $5635 USD in the United States. The per capita costs in the US from public sources were $2570 USD, compared to $2108 USD in Canada. Americans are already spending more for public health care without universal coverage.

There are downsides to Medicare. Some patients are dissatisfied with the care they receive, although I would venture to guess that’s true in every other country in the world as well. No matter how you fund medical care there will be doctors who make mistakes or nurses who are having a bad day. Because there is no option to go outside the system it leaves people who want to pay a premium for ‘better service’ without recourse. And it doesn’t allow doctors to set their own rates, since their rates are set by the public health authority.

But the truth is that we are not dying in droves. Our life expectancy is higher and our infant mortality rates are lower than in the US. We generally trust the system to care for our urgent needs. And we are thankful to know that in any circumstances we can count on our health care needs being met. We won’t become uninsured if we lose our jobs. A serious illness or injury won’t bankrupt us. Any of us. I think that’s a good thing.

EI Reform and Maternity Leave

It’s Mat Leave Monday! Here in Canada Employment Insurance (EI) reform is a hot topic. I hear it’s going to bring down the government and force an election. Since maternity and parental benefits are administered through the EI system, I thought the reforms might affect mat leave. Today I’m going to examine EI reform and see if there’s any connection.

For the non-Canadians, the brief version is that Canada has a minority government right now. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have fewer seats in Parliament than the other parties do in combination. So the other parties can band together and declare that they don’t have confidence in the Prime Minister. Then the Governor General typically dissolves Parliament and calls an election. This sounds very exciting, but in practice is actually rather tedious, since the government is constantly on the brink of collapse or we’re voting yet again. But maybe I’m just jaded.

Anyhow, back to EI reform.

Bill C-280, sponsored by NDP Member of Parliament Carol Hughes, contains the proposed EI reforms that are currently being debated. The bill makes the following changes to EI:

The lowered qualifying period does not seem to impact ’special’ leaves, such as maternity and parental leave. Maternity and parental benefits have a 600 hours qualifying period right now, which does not vary from region to region. I think this is because theoretically your likelihood of collecting maternity or parental benefits does not change with the unemployment level in your community. Certainly, the bill itself makes no mention of maternity or parental leave.

The change to the way benefits are calculated, using your highest-paying 12 weeks, would presumably impact all types of EI, including maternity and parental benefits. So if you had a variable income, this would work in your favour. I think that reducing the qualifying period would have a greater impact for most families, however.

Another NDP Member of Parliament, Chris Charlton, proposed separate legislation to deal with the problems facing parents who are laid off following maternity or parental leave, and do not qualify for EI. Charlton’s proposed reforms involve eliminating the current 50-week cap, so that moms such as myself with no job to return to could access EI. However, like most private member’s bills this one appears to be dying a quiet death.

I don’t know what makes the most sense here. It’s clear that losing your job and having no EI to fall back on can be a serious hardship for many Canadians. Lowering qualifying periods may help more people to access EI. But extending maternity and parental leave to the self-employed, or providing maternity benefits to adoptive parents, would help families as well. I think it’s clear that the EI system could be improved, and that it is not serving all Canadians as well as it could.

It’s also clear that a lot of political hay is being made here, with no particular guarantee of change. Both of the bills I mentioned are from opposition members, and these bills never pass without the backing of the governing party. While the other opposition parties are rallying around EI reform, they haven’t exactly committed to the changes the NDP is suggesting. So it remains to be seen what, if anything, will actually come of this debate. If you have strong feelings either way, your best course of action is to get in touch with your MP and tell him or her how you feel. Because if there is an election they will want to work to make you happy.

Balancing Motherhood

A few weeks ago I opened the morning paper and saw a headline that read “Female doctors hurt productivity“. According to this report female doctors work fewer hours, on average, than male doctors. Although admissions to Canadian medical schools have increased, so has the percentage of female doctors. (Which, yay!) Since these women see fewer patients on average, we are facing a doctor shortage.

In January of 2008 Maclean’s ran a much more detailed article, “Adding fuel to the doctor crisis“. It talked about the difficulty people have in finding family physicians, and how frequently young women shift or leave their medical practice. And lest we think that this isn’t a purely feminine trait, the article states that the average male physician works 56 hours per week compared to the average female’s 48. The difference is real, at least in the broad sense.

I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. But I am a woman and a mother, and I find the tone that was used in these articles a little disturbing. Recognizing that women are not willing to work the same hours as men is reasonable. It’s also unsurprising, because in most cases women take on the lion’s share of child-rearing and household responsibilities. What I didn’t enjoy is the underlying implication that somehow having more female doctors is a problem.

When I returned to work after my first maternity leave, I knew that I didn’t want to work full-time away from home. I decided to telecommute two days a week. I planned to continue working full-time hours, but 40% of them would be from the comfort of my living room. It was going to be great, my daughter could play or nap while I worked and then I would take breaks for meals or library story time. And I would save time because I wouldn’t have the commute or the morning rush to get out the door.

Anyone who has ever attempted to work and care for a one-year-old at the same time can guess how that went. Within a month I had dropped from 40 hours a week to 32. I could get 4 hours in from home most days, but 8 was out of the question. I took a hit in order to find a better work-life balance. I did this with my eyes open, aware that it meant I would be ‘mommy-tracked’ and I would not be landing a big promotion any time soon.

Reducing my working hours did not completely erase my contribution in the workplace. In some ways it sharpened it, because I became more focused on working when I was in the office. I made more of an effort to set aside work time for work. I really think it was a great thing that I was able to find that balance, and I wish that more employees and employers were able to work out similar agreements.

My husband Jon also scaled back after our first child was born, making some conscious career choices so that he could spend more time with his growing family. He doesn’t travel nearly as often as he could and he turns down freelance work that would keep him away from home too much. When he wasn’t working full-time he set aside Tuesdays as days to spend just with our daughter Hannah. His importance in the lives of our children shouldn’t be underestimated. The benefits to both of us working a little less were huge for our family.

These days, knowing that I won’t be returning to my old job, I’m faced with some choices. Do I try to find part-time work, knowing that it will be much harder when I don’t have a history or track record with a new employer? Do I use the severance to stay home as long as I can, and then work full time so that I have more employment options? Or do I try to find some way to work from home? I could start my own business or try freelancing. There are advantages and disadvantages to each choice. I will share my journey towards a new balance with you here as it happens.

And in the meantime, you can bet I’m going to hold my tongue if my doctor takes Friday off. She deserves it.

Single Transferrable Vote

We’re gearing up for a provincial election here in BC on May 12. This is also my 8th wedding anniversary. Since Jon works in TV news, this lovely coincidence means that I won’t see him since he will be busy covering the election. Fun times! But as I’m not writing this simply to whine about my bad luck with the election day / anniversary collision I will move on.

In addition to voting for our elected representatives, we will also be voting on a new electoral system. There will be a referendum on the Single Transferrable Vote, or STV, system. We had a similar referendum four years ago, which was very narrowly defeated. Since it was so very close, they’re trying to garner more support this time around.

So what the heck is STV? It’s a little bit complicated, and I think as a result there’s a general lack of awareness and interest. I was able to find a pretty clear animated explanation, which includes an example of a fictional riding. The problem, though, is that it’s several minutes long and involves mathematical equations. I can see why most people don’t really understand how STV works.

My brief summary is this – each riding would be made larger, and multiple representatives would be elected from each. The total number of ridings, however, remains constant. A baseline number of votes for a candidate to be elected is chosen for each riding based on how many representatives are being elected and how many votes were cast. Each person ranks candidates by number when they’re voting (1, 2, 3, etc.). You can rank all of them, or just choose one. Then the number of first choice votes are tallied up. The candidates with more than the baseline number of votes are elected.

Then it gets sort of tricky. If there aren’t enough candidates, then the elected candidates’ votes are re-examined to determine each voter’s second choice. Another mathematical formula is applied to weight these votes according to how much ’surplus’ the elected candidate has. Then the votes are applied to the remaining candidates. This continues, more or less, until the correct number of representatives are elected.

Under our current system, we elect one representative from each riding. Then, the leader of the party with the most representatives becomes the premier (or, nationally, the Prime Minister). The downside to this system is that a party which has received only 40% of the popular vote may form a majority government, especially when there are many parties vying for seats. STV aims to address that. It also aims to provide a voice to parties like the greens, who receive a significant number of votes but never get a seat in the legislature.

One of the ramifications of STV is that there is a much greater likelihood of having a minority government. Certainly, some of the overwhelming majorities we’ve seen in BC in the past are less likely. Also because voters can vote for multiple parties, it sometimes results in a reduction in the partisanship we see today. I can see choosing candidates differently when I’m ranking 3 or 4 of them, instead of marking my X for only one. And I’m sure I’m not alone. We can expect elections to be fought and won (or lost) differently if we change the electoral system, which is neither good nor bad in and of itself.

There are advantages and disadvantages to STV, just as there are advantages and disadvantages with our current system. I think the most important thing is that you educate yourself, form your own opinion, and vote. No matter how we elect our politicians, our voices matter. We need to let them know that we are paying attention, and one of the best ways to do that is to show up on election day.

Egg Marketing Boards

I’ve wondered for a while how eggs are sold and regulated here in Canada. I know that there is very strict milk marketing board, which forbids the sale of liquid milk or cream by unlicensed producers. Some people get around this rule by selling ’shares’ in a cow, and then ‘giving’ shareholders milk. This is how people buy raw milk, even though it’s technically illegal.

I have long known that there are egg marketing boards as well. However, they clearly don’t operate in the same way as the milk boards do, because you can buy eggs at farm stands and farmer’s markets. Milk you can only buy at the store. So what’s the difference? And what does the marketing board actually do?

The Canadian Egg Marketing Agency is primarily responsible for managing the egg supply. This excerpt describes how supply management works pretty succinctly:

The Canadian Egg Marketing Agency manages supply by establishing annually the national requirement for eggs. The national requirement is then shared among the provinces. To ensure demand can be met, provincial boards issue production quotas to individual producers after accounting for the numbers of smaller producers who grow eggs without quotas.

By ensuring that the market isn’t flooded with eggs, the marketing board keeps prices stable. The argument is that without this sort of protection the Canadian market would be flooded with cheap American eggs, and our own farms would collapse. This would also leave us vulnerable, unable to guarantee our own supply of eggs. I support local farmers and measures to promote food security. But there is a flip side – as Canadians we pay more for our eggs. Are we getting value for the premium we pay?

Here in BC, farms with less than 100 laying hens are permitted to operate without a license. These are the people who are selling eggs at the farmer’s market. Their eggs are nearly always free-range and often organic. And they are operating free from government regulations or oversight.

In contrast, licensed producers with a quota from the BC Egg Marketing Board average 17,000 hens each. And 88% of those eggs are produced in conventional cage systems. These are industrial operations producing vast quantities of eggs. These are also the sorts of farms that groups like the SPCA have raised concerns about.

So what? If I don’t want to buy eggs from a large-scale producer, can’t I just drop by a farm stand? Well, yes. But the problem is that there is a huge gap in the middle, between 99 laying hens and 10,000, the minimum number you need for a quota from the marketing board. And this zone has some very unclear regulations. The financial viability of keeping fewer than 100 birds may be questionable, but growing beyond that might be impossible when you’re bogged down by paperwork. You can hear about one farmer’s frustrations with the BC Egg Marketing Board over at Howling Duck Ranch.

I think there must be a way to provide Canadian egg farmers with security, and also allow small-to-mid sized producers to operate. I don’t think it’s fair that farmers are prevented from growing their business in a small-scale and sustainable fashion. I think it conflicts with the very ideals the marketing board espouses, like promoting food security and protecting the family farm.

As for me, I will continue buying from small producers. Partly because I like knowing where my food is coming from, and how the chickens are treated. But also because there’s no comparing the eggs. The colour of the yolk, the flavour, and even the nutritional content are better when hens are allowed access to outdoor pasture. Or at least that’s my own opinion. I’m sure the large-scale producers are working to ensure the best quality product, and that most people will buy it because it’s affordable and readily available at the grocery store. Fair enough. There’s room for all of us to exercise our own free choice.

I am left with one small question, though. Why is it that farm-fresh eggs are always brown, and commercial eggs are pretty much all white? Is it convention – white says clean and industrial, and brown says crunchy hippie? Or is there actually a reason? If you can answer my burning question, I would love to know.

Designer Babies, Take Two

Sometime ago I wrote a post about the birth of a baby girl in London, who had been screened for BRCA-1, commonly called the “breast cancer gene.” I was more or less wondering out loud about the ethics of screening embryos, and where you draw the line.

I recently came across another story that takes the whole thing to another level. There is a clinic in the United States that offers pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select the gender of your baby. And they have started advertising the ability to choose other traits as well, including hair and eye colour. The Fertility Institutes, operating under Dr. Steinberg, is promoting the service and have some interested couples. Look on the clinic’s website under “What’s New” to see what’s on offer.

I’m not even really sure what to say to this. It’s one thing to screen for a very serious disease. It’s quite another to order the specific baby you want. It sort of runs counter to my whole conception of parenting and nature to select physical traits by screening embryos. Certainly, we all hope for healthy children. We want the best for our kids. But we also welcome our kids with open arms, as they are, knowing that life is messy and not everyone is going to be a supermodel or a rocket scientist.

Plus (keeping in mind that I have no knowledge of how genetics works) isn’t one of the strengths of the reproductive process the way that it creates diversity? The limitless combinations that can happen? I thought this was the sort of thing that ensured whole populations don’t get wiped out by a single virus, or allowed us to evolve. If we become a nation of Barbie and Ken clones don’t we lose the protections offered by nature?

I think that very few parents would actually screen for traits such as gender or physical appearance. PGD requires that you undergo in vitro fertilization, a process which is both expensive and grueling. On that basis alone few would choose it lightly. I also imagine that I am not the only one who finds it all ethically questionable. As I understand it many countries would not even allow such a thing to occur. But this is today – who knows where we will be in 20 years?

It’s an interesting place to be, at the juncture of science and ethics. It’s raising a lot of questions, and I’m afraid the answers might not be coming quickly enough. If there are even any answers at all.

Maternity Leave and the Self-Employed

It’s Mat Leave Monday! Today I’m discussing maternity leave and the self-employed. For a refresher on how maternity leave works in Canada, you can read my previous posts about Canadian Maternity Leave and Maternity Leave in Quebec.

During the 2008 election campaign the Conservatives promised to extend maternity and parental benefits to the self-employed. Their website says, “Only the Harper Conservatives have agreed to do the right thing and extend maternity and paternal benefits to self-employed entrepreneurs.” (I think they meant parental instead of paternal, but whatever, you get the drift).

And so, prior to the release of the 2009 federal budget in January there were rumours that maternity and parental benefits through EI would be extended to the self-employed. Only that didn’t exactly happen. Instead, what happened was the government agreed to establish an Expert Panel to consult Canadians on how best to extend maternity and parental benefits to the self-employed. You can read the exact text of the budget online and get the (extremely limited) details for yourself.

Perhaps this is just the way that the Conservatives are fulfilling their election promise, by setting up a committee and a consultation process. But if you refer back to their own website they already had a rather detailed plan for how the self-employed would qualify for and receive maternity and parental benefits. It sort of seems like they’re dragging their feet now that the economy is bad and they’re already in deficit. Who knows? It would hardly be the first time an election promise was broken, and either way it all means the same thing, which is that no one who is self-employed is collecting maternity and parental benefits in Canada. Unless they live in Quebec and opt into the provincial system there, in which case the self-employed have been receiving maternity and parental benefits for a few years already.

At the moment, approximately one third of Canadian women who have babies are not eligible for maternity or parental benefits. However, only eleven percent of Canadian women are self-employed, so I would guess that means that around 20% of new mothers are unemployed or do not work enough to qualify for EI. Remember that you need 600 insurable hours over 52 weeks, so you have to work an average of 12 hours per week to collect benefits. Experts are always quick to point out that many part-time and seasonal workers are women with young children.

OK, so what’s my point? To tie it all together, what I’m saying is that while we have really great maternity benefits in Canada, there is a significant subset of Canadian parents who are left out. And often the ones who are left out are the ones who are least able to take leave without receiving EI benefits. The government may be addressing that, which would be a step in the right direction. I guess for now we’ll just have to wait and see if the Expert Panel is actually formed, and what it does, and what sort of timeline they’re given.

Edited to add: In November, maternity and parental benefits for self-employed Canadians was announced. To find out more, read Maternity Leave for the Self-Employed Announced.

Fidelity

I recently saw this really great video, called “Fidelity”. It was created by the Courage Campaign in California. What’s it all about? Last May, same-sex marriage was legalized in California. Between May and November, approximately 18,000 same-sex couples were married in the state. When Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, passed in the November the status of the existing marriages came into question.

This video is the Courage Campaign’s response. Watch it, and if you feel moved visit the Courage Campaign’s site and sign the petition.

“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

As a Canadian, I am glad that same-sex marriages are legally recognized here. The first marriages were performed in Ontario and British Columbia in 2003. And in July of 2005 same-sex marriages were recognized nationwide. In spite of challenges by various political groups, the law has stood and as of 2006 there were over 12,000 same-sex couples who were legally married in Canada. It says something about the size of our country that fewer people were married here over the course of 3 years than in a single US state in approximately 6 months.

Vancouver Pride Parade, 2006

More than 5 years after the first same-sex marriages were performed, our country has not descended into anarchy. Heterosexual marriages remain as good or bad as they ever were. Churches are not forced to perform same-sex marriages if they prefer not to. To be fair, churches aren’t even forced to perform heterosexual marriages, either. It’s not like Jon and I could just march up to our local Catholic church and be married as two non-Catholics. Extending marriage rights has not harmed traditional marriage or resulted in any sort of chaos that I am aware of.

I think in a free and democratic society we must extend basic rights to others when they in no way infringe on our own. You may believe, for example, that it’s wrong to live together before marriage. Fair enough. But you don’t have the right to impose that belief on others, or pass laws to prevent them from exercising their own free will. What makes same-sex marriage any different? Nothing that I can think of. I hope that the State of California, and all other jurisdictions, come to see it that way as well.