Too many people have to choose between a career and a baby




I gave the following one-minute statement in the House of Commons on Wedneday, June 18th.

Mr. Speaker,

Too many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians … too many Canadians … are thinking of starting a family but are worried about the financial cost.

Too many people have to choose between a career and a baby.

The support for young families is not where it should be.

I held a public forum in my riding of St. John’s South-Mount Pearl last week and the overwhelming message is that – at 55 per cent – parental benefits under the EI system are inadequate.

Parental benefits should also fall outside the EI system. New parents are not unemployed or searching for work.

New parents deserve fair pay for the hardest job.

We speak in this House about Citizenship and Immigration and the Temporary Foreign Worker program as ways to address the labour shortage, but why not make our central focus the family?

We must nurture our most precious resource.

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