Pregnant MLA forces Alberta to address maternity leave

Charlene Johnson was a rookie in the Newfoundland and Labrador cabinet when she found out she was going to have her first child.

in April 2009, she would be the first sitting member of the House of Assembly in the province’s history to have a baby.

“I was very sick beginning seven weeks into my pregnancy so the secret got out very early because you can only say you have the stomach bug for so long,” she recalls.

Johnson remembers her colleagues were all very supportive, but the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature had no provision for maternity leave.

The provincial government quickly revised legislation to add adoption, pregnancy and parental leave to the list of acceptable reasons to be absent from the House.

Still, Johnson was back in question period less than a month after giving birth to her daughter.

“I was doing my best to breastfeed despite some complications and so I wanted to be home as much as I could,” she tells Yahoo Canada News. “They say to nap when your baby naps; however, I worked when she napped. We were in the middle of the environmental assessment process for the Muskrat Falls project so it was important to me that I find the balance with home and work.”

Breaking the maternity barrier

Johnson may have been Newfoundland and Labrador’s first politician to give birth while in office, but she was not the country’s.

The Parti Québécois’ Pauline Marois gave birth to her second child 11 days after her inaugural electoral victory in 1981. Six days later Marois was at her cabinet swearing-in, as the minister responsible for the status of women.

B.C. Liberal party MLA Judi Tyabji reportedly took three days off after giving birth in 1992 and B.C. Premier Christy Clark returned to work just over a month after the birth of her son in 2001.

“The House is sitting,” Clark told reporters. “I can’t not be here.”

More than three decades after Marois broke the maternity barrier, Alberta has its first pregnant member of the legislative assembly (MLA). The province still has no provision for maternity leave.

Stephanie McLean is due in February. Under the current rules, not only is she not entitled to maternity benefits through the federal Employment Insurance program, but she does not qualify for an extended absence from the Legislative Assembly.

As it is now, McLean can enjoy 10 days off to spend with her first born. After that, she could be docked $100 in pay for every day she’s absent when the legislature is sitting.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has called the rules “archaic.”

“We’re looking at different ways to fix it, but we will fix it,” she told reporters this week.

“In the long term, obviously we’re going to change that piece of legislation, no question, it’s got to be fixed. It’s wrong. In the shorter term, we’re looking at different strategies to ensure that MLA McLean suffers no economic loss.”

McLean, a Calgary-area MLA, told the Edmonton Journal she intends to return to work as soon as possible after her delivery.

Owed to a support system that included her husband, family, friends, colleagues and an executive assistant “who certainly expanded on the definition of taking your work home,” Johnson made it work for more than five years.

“Looking back I sometimes feel a little guilty that 12 hours after giving birth I signed a briefing note from my hospital bed but my daughter is none the worse for it,” she says in an email exchange.

“She was always my primary focus but I was committed to my work, as well.”

When her husband was offered a job overseas last year, though, the Johnsons decided to move. The family now lives in Brunei.

A million in the same boat

And it’s not just female politicians who fall into the gap, Johnson points out.

To qualify for maternity benefits from the federal Employment Insurance program, a woman must have worked for a minimum of 600 insurable hours in the year prior to the birth and paid into the system for each hour.

Politicians don’t have to pay into the EI system because they are basically considered self-employed. Most of the more than one million female small business owners, entrepreneurs, contractors, freelancers and otherwise self-employed women in Canada are in the same situation.

Since 2011, self-employed people have been able to opt into the EI program, giving them access to up to 15 weeks of maternity leaves, as well as up to 35 weeks of parental leave. The EI opt-in also gives access to benefits for sickness or injury and compassionate care.

But the program has some flaws, including no access to unemployment benefits, a $485 per week cap and no way to opt out once a person has collected benefits. Uptake has been minimal.

In 2013-14, the self-employed EI program paid out $8.2 million in benefits in total, $7.9 million of it in maternity or parental benefits.

Johnson says the rarity of the issue suggests it’s not a key barrier to women entering politics, but certainly family time is an issue for everyone. The hours of legislative sitting can be “absurd,” she says.

She recalls one stretch a few years ago when the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly sat for 50 hours with just short breaks between sessions.

And child care can be a problem because it’s far from a nine-to-five job, Johnson says.

“I should say that this isn’t an issue just for women. We had young fathers in our House as well who I know wanted to be home at night.”