Employers must avoid reproducing the inequalities between adoptive parents and biological parents that the Quebec government has itself eliminated in parental leave, argue 17 signatories of a letter sent to The Press.
The letter is notably signed by a doctor, professors of law or social service and former members of the Special Commission on the Rights of Children and Youth Protection.
In 2019, the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, announced that parental leave should henceforth count the same number of weeks for all parents in Quebec, whether biological or adoptive.
“Although the law now traces the way forward in the allocation of parental leave, several collective agreements maintain, or even reiterate, unequal treatment of families and children”, denounce the 17 signatories.
Adopted children “present, for the most part, developmental delays, post-traumatic syndromes, attachment challenges or various physical health problems […] making their care particularly demanding and complex”, plead the authors of the letter.
Carmen Lavallée, professor of law at the University of Sherbrooke, gives the example of the agreement in principle reached between the University of Sherbrooke and its professors. According to his understanding, “the biological parents will be entitled together to 36 weeks during which they will receive 100% of their salary, while the adoptive parents will be entitled to 20 weeks of leave. The financial burden is therefore imposed on the parents, which is almost twice that of the biological parents”.
“Biological Effects of Childbirth”
In an interview, Finn Makela, vice-president of the Union of Professors and Professors of the University of Sherbrooke, indicates that the intention of the union is certainly not to discriminate, but to eliminate the one that made so far here that biological fathers were disadvantaged compared to adoptive fathers.
According to the agreement in principle, he says, the woman who gives birth will receive 100% of her salary for 26 weeks; the one who adopts will have her full salary for 10 weeks and for the next seven weeks, she will receive between 80% and 85% of her income (the basic benefits of the Quebec parental insurance plan plus a bonus paid by the employer ).
This is explained by “the biological effects of childbirth”, says Finn Makela.
He adds that if members consider themselves wronged, the question will be analyzed, as it was for a surrogacy file which had not been provided for as a possible scenario in the collective agreement.
With the proliferation of family models, he points out, “it is more difficult to foresee everything”.
On behalf of the University of Sherbrooke, Patrik Doucet, vice-rector for human resources and vice-rector for digital transformation, also assures that “if certain ‘effects of duly negotiated clauses’ pose a problem”, it will be possible to ” deal with these effects, for example by agreeing to a letter of agreement or by modifying such clauses when renewing a collective agreement”.
Dominique Goubau, signatory of the letter and professor of law at Laval University, points out that filiation and therefore family ties “are part of the civil status of persons and, as such, are a prohibited ground for discrimination within the meaning charters”.
Without commenting on a particular case, Stéphanie Fournier, lawyer at the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, points out that in general, it is necessary to distinguish between maternity leave and parental leave. For maternity leave, these are “15 to 20 weeks which are recognized specifically for the mother” by the courts, for her to recover from pregnancy and childbirth. For parental leave, “there should be no distinction between biological and adoptive parents”, explains Ms.e Fournier.