Ever since Candy Hamre Wyka became a mother in 1996, the government has viewed her as a “second-class” parent, she says.
Hamre Wyka and her husband have four children through adoption and guardianship. Each child joined their family as babies.
But because Hamre Wyka didn’t give birth to her children, she couldn’t access the same amount of time off work. It was overwhelming. Some of the adoptions were finalized quickly, and there wasn’t a lot of time to prepare, she said.
Right now, adoptive parents are only eligible for parental benefits under Employment Insurance — not the 15-week maternity leave — when a child is placed with them.
This gives parents less time to bond with their children. That’s particularly difficult for children who are dealing with grief, loss, trauma or medical needs and may need more time to bond with their new parents.
Adoptive parents’ eligibility for leave is set to change. In the fall economic statement released earlier this week, the federal government announced plans to create a 15-week benefit specifically for parents who adopt. It can be shared between parents. The government estimates that 1,700 families will benefit each year. Surrogate parents will also be eligible, the government says, but did not define who will qualify as a surrogate.
The adoption leave is “really exciting,” said Hamre Wyka, who is also the programs and communications director for the Evermore Centre, an organization in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan that supports families that have gone through adoption, foster care, kinship and guardianship. Giving parents and children more time together “gives the kids the best start possible to build a good foundation,” she said.
This new benefit is just one item in the fall economic statement aimed at making life more manageable for Canadian families. The statement also includes measures targeted at lowering grocery costs, bank fees and roaming charges for mobile devices. And the government reiterated its goal of making housing more affordable.
But some say that while these promises are good, they fail to address the reasons why many families are struggling financially.
Paul Kershaw, founder of Generation Squeeze, a think tank that focuses on ensuring that people are fairly cared for at all ages, says the fall economic statement reflects a larger trend of the government spending more on older people than it does on families and children.
According to the statement, the government plans to spend $101.3 billion on Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement in 2027-28, up from $69.4 billion in the 2022-2023 fiscal year. It is the largest transfer of government money directly to individuals.
These numbers overshadow forecasted expenditures of Employment Insurance and the Canada Child Benefit. Employment Insurance is set to rise to $29.1 billion in 2027-28 from $21.8 billion in 2022-23. Spending on the Canada Child Benefit is supposed to rise to $32.2 billion from $24.6 billion in the same length of time.
“We’re investing in well-being later in the life course, much more urgently than we are investing in well-being earlier,” said Kershaw. This reflects an “intergenerational tension” in federal budgets, he says. More attention needs to be paid to the fact budgets are weighted more towards seniors. Canada “should be good at both” providing for seniors and young children.
The other announced measures to decrease costs don’t address the reasons why the cost of living is so expensive, experts say.
The Canada Mortgage Charter announced in the economic statement does not remove the stress test requirement for uninsured borrowers, who represent 71 per cent of all mortgage balances in 2023. This means Canada’s 4.6 million uninsured mortgage holders will lack leverage when their mortgage renews, giving banks all the power when setting their interest rates, Canadian Affairs reported this week.
In the fall economic statement, the government promises to lower grocery prices, but gives few details. It says the government “is not ruling out any new measures, including possible tax measures, to support the grocery price stability that Canadians deserve.”
Additional taxes likely won’t help, says David Clement, North America affairs manager for the Consumer Choice Center, an independent group that advocates for more competition in business. “It’s extremely unlikely that any additional taxes on grocery stores are not passed on to consumers via higher prices,” he said. Instead, the government needs to rethink supply management practices that legally fix the prices of dairy and poultry.
The government also says it will study international roaming charges Canadians pay on mobile devices. That study could be helpful, says Aaron Wudrick, director of the domestic policy program at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a national policy think-tank. There needs to be more foreign competition in telecommunications, he says.
“More competition in a small country like Canada requires foreign investment. We just don’t have enough dollars and competitors in Canada alone to shake up markets,” Wudrick said.
David Clement is also the news director of News Forum, a news channel where Canadian Affairs reporters sometimes appear as guests.
With files from Hadassah Alencar.
