Bill grants parental leave for councillors
Lack of extended time off for city officials was ‘especially onerous for women’
Local politicians who have or adopt a baby during their term must seek their council’s approval to take parental leave — an oversight in the Municipal Act that a Liberal MPP considers “antiquated” and “demeaning” and says must be fixed.
“I think that people are stunned this even exists,” said Daiene Vernile of the lack of provision in the act for new parents. Currently, if councillors miss meetings three months in a row, they can lose their seat — unless they go before their colleagues to ask for permission to take more time off.
“I think that it just is a very small, forgotten part of the Municipal Act that has not come up that often,” added the Kitchener Centre MPP.
Vernile’s private member’s bill — which unanimously passed second reading Thursday — to amend the Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act, to guarantee up to 20 weeks off “if the absence is a result of the member’s pregnancy, the birth of the member’s child or the adoption of a child by the member.”
Quebec is considering a similar bill, providing up to 18 weeks off.
The issue came to the forefront in Vernile’s backyard, with Kitchener councillor Kelly Galloway-Sealock giving birth to three children — the most recent was just over a week ago — while in office. She took very little time off work — keeping in touch with staff and constituents by phone and email — missing just one council meeting each time. But she has been advocating for some recognition of parental leave than two years.
“The Municipal Act is currently archaic . . . especially because you are seeing the demographic change around municipal councils and government in general. I think it’s time to have an update.”
Her pregnancies were not complicated, but she wonders what happens to women who may need more time off to recover from a caesarean birth, or if fellow councillors aren’t as supportive as hers are in Kitchener.
“I don’t think having a child should be the reason why you might lose your seat,” she said.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has also been seeking changes so that parental leave isn’t considered an absence from council. New Democrat MPP Catherine Fife wrote to Minister of Municipal Affairs Bill Mauro about the issue, and wonders why it has been left to a Liberal MPP to raise the issue in a private member’s bill with her own majority government.
“It’s unbelievable, and very disappointing, that in 2016 we still have to ask our fellow councillors to take the parental leave without penalty,” said Fife (Kitchener—Waterloo).
She is also hoping the changes will be extended to school board trustees.
Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Mauro said councils can create their own local policies on leaves and that he supports “consideration (of the bill) as it moves through the legislative process.”
Oshawa Councillor Amy McQuaidEngland, who found herself the subject of a complaint to children’s aid after she breastfed her baby at council, feels it is important that politicians be available to their constituents, and thinks some flexibility — such as on-site child care, attending meetings and voting by phone, or being able to vote from another room while breastfeeding baby — would help.
Vernile said provincially and federally, politicians can take time off, and called the lack of extended leave to locally elected officials a barrier that’s “especially onerous for women.”
She noted women comprise just 26 per cent of councillors across Canada, and 16 per cent of all mayors.
Typically, across Canada, parental leave is one year.