So, Blake Richards, Banff-Airdrie Conservative MP, is proposing a financial reprieve for parents who have lost a child under 12 months of age to death. He states that parental benefits are revoked on the day a baby dies and has put forward a private member’s motion for financial and grief support for bereaved parents so they can begin to grieve their loss and honour their child without hardship, possibly through a bereavement leave or a minimum six weeks paid parental leave. He apparently thinks these families are affected by a “bureaucratic oversight.”
How is the revoking of the parental benefits any different than the revoking of benefits on deaths of seniors and other family members? If payment of benefits continues after the month in which the senior is deceased, these payments have to paid back. How is the honoring the death of a child any different than honoring the death of any other family member?
Regarding bereavement leaves, why should parents of deceased children under 12 months receive more than what other Canadians receive in the bereavement process? If employed, most Canadians (if they are so lucky to have these benefits) receive up to one week of bereavement leave. Continued difficulties with bereavement process are dealt with through taking sick leave and when sick leave has been used up, then short term and long term disability kick in.
A bereavement leave or a minimum six weeks paid parental leave implies the parent receiving these benefits has to be employed. These same benefits would not be available to those who by choice are not employed at the time of their child’s death.
This begs the question: who is going to pay for yet another family boutique benefit that purposely privileges a certain group of Canadians? Once again this is another example of governments and politicians who claim they are not of the “socialist ilk” continuing to practise selective social democracy. There is no need for this special financial privileging when there are already sick leave and short and long term disability programs in place. The death of a child under 12 months of age should not be financially treated any differently than deaths of other family members.
Lin Gackle
