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Louise Chabot

Member of Parliament
Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
Bloc Québécois

Thérèse-De Blainville
Quebec
Voting Attendance: 65%
Expenses Last Quarter: $122,743.44

Government Page

Ms. Louise Chabot (Thérèse-De Blainville, BQ)

Apr/9/24 2:16:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal, or MAC, is currently running a campaign about EI reform for workers on maternity leave. With this campaign, MAC is demanding that anyone who is on maternity leave and loses their job not be unfairly penalized by an archaic and outdated system. This is the perfect illustration of the need for EI reform. We must put an end the discrimination women face in accessing this program and address the injustices faced by working women. This is also why the Bloc Québécois has been pushing for reform for a long time. We have been pushing for equality, we have been pushing for accessibility. It is time for this government to act. There is a budget in the works and it must put an end to this sexist rule and modernize the EI system. I want to salute the MAC members who are leading this fight. We stand with them.

163 words

Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23

Mme Louise Chabot

May/4/23 6:05:08 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-318

Madam Speaker, I apologize to you and to my Conservative Party colleague. I really want to commend her for this initiative. I would even remind her that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities conducted a study in 2021 on a comprehensive EI reform. I think everyone remembers that. At the time, the government committed to building a stronger, more inclusive and modern EI system that covers all workers, including adoptive parents. I will read recommendation 12 from the committee's report on modernizing the employment insurance program. It states: “That Employment and Social Development Canada explore the option of creating 'attachment benefits' modeled after Employment Insurance maternity benefits, to ensure equitable treatment of adoptive, kinship, customary and biological parents in the amount of time and benefits provided to bond with their children.” In December 2021, the mandate letter of the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion asked her to create a new 15-week benefit for adoptive parents. My critique about this debate is that, once again, we have to rely on private members' bills. That was what we had to do when we wanted to increase EI sickness benefits to 52 weeks. Now we have to do it again if we want biological and adoptive parents to be treated equally. Despite the government's pretty words, and despite its repeated commitment to EI reform and all its other commitments, nothing is happening. Absolutely nothing is happening because the government seems to have reneged on its 2021, 2019, and even 2015 promise to strengthen the EI system and provide the rights that should be provided. That is not what is happening. For example, pregnant women who lose their jobs during pregnancy are not entitled to regular EI benefits because the program's eligibility criteria currently discriminate against them. The government committed to correcting this inequity for women and committed to revising the program to ensure that the eligibility criteria do not penalize them if they lose their jobs. The tribunal ruled in favour of the women, finding that the eligibility criteria were discriminatory. The government decided to appeal the ruling rather than fix the situation. Reforming EI is the way to fix it. Right now, seasonal workers in many parts of Canada, including western Canada, eastern Canada and Quebec, are sounding the alarm and demanding EI eligibility requirements that do not penalize their socio-economic regions. While waiting for their work to start up again, these people have to get by with no income during the EI seasonal gap, even though seasonal industries are what keep these regions alive. The minister was asked to respond to this again recently. Regions represented by my colleagues from the north shore, Gaspé and Charlevoix depend on seasonal industries to survive. None of this will get any better without political will. Today the Liberals will say this needs a royal recommendation, or they will claim they do not know what to do about it. There is only one way to go about it: All the injustices, all the EI eligibility requirements need to be changed. The government needs to stop asking questions about how it should be done and just do it. It needs to seize this opportunity and correct these inequities, just as the measures proposed in this bill would do by providing adoptive parents and biological parents with equal treatment when it comes to fundamental bonding time. I invite the minister to present a royal recommendation, but I urge her for once and for all to introduce a bill to reform EI. Workers, women and parents deserve it.

615 words

Context: House Hansard - 142 - Dec/6/22

Ms. Louise Chabot

Dec/6/22 1:38:41 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-32

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleague for her question, and I would like to acknowledge her very moving speech. The employment insurance system discriminates against women in several ways. First, it is often women who work in non-standard jobs. Because of the current EI rules surrounding eligibility criteria, it is very difficult to qualify for employment insurance when you work in a non-standard job. Second, pregnant women who lose their jobs while on maternity leave or upon return from maternity leave are no longer eligible for EI. That is another way that EI rules discriminate against women. Women won a court battle, yet the government has not even corrected this. What a disgrace.

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Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Louise Chabot