PARENTAL LEAVE
City councillors set to adopt policy
It's been four years in the making, but Saskatoon city councillors will soon have a policy for taking parental leave.
On Monday a draft policy for leaves of absence will be presented to the governance and priorities committee. Right now there is no policy in place.
“I'm really glad to have something back in front of us that we can work through,” said Coun. Mairin Loewen, who had her son while serving as a councillor in 2017.
“It's been four years since Coun. Block made her original motion,” Loewen noted. “We're making progress.”
The policy laid out in a report to the committee recommends that parental leave be covered for 26 weeks. During that time, councillors would be paid the same as the maximum current EI entitlement. They would also continue to receive benefits, according to the recommendations in the proposed policy.
“Really the way that the recommendations are structured, the onus is on the person to come up with their own supports to cover their absences and their work,” Loewen said. “When my son was born, I had a tremendous offering of support from my colleagues and I had good fortune there, and not every council in Canada has those dynamics.
“I appreciate the work that's gone into it, but I don't see that we're there yet.”
Loewen said she wants more clarity in how a councillor's work will be managed when he or she is on leave —which was also missing when her son was born.
“The thing most challenging about that period was the lack of clarity for myself, my colleagues and the public on how that work was going to be managed.”
She said the consistency and quality of representation for constituents is affected when their councillor is on leave, and the policy doesn't address that issue.
She'd also like other kinds of leave addressed, such as caring for an ill or elderly family member.
“What happens to our work if we need to take those leaves? That question still needs to be answered,” she said.
“The question isn't how to make longer periods of absence possible. The question is how do we support councillors who are on longer term leaves.”
The report recommends council continue to not formally authorize leaves of less than three months, stating that informal leaves provide “useful flexibility” for councillors.
The policy is to be debated by the governance and priorities committee on Monday, then sent back to the administration for revisions. Any changes will have to ultimately be approved by city council.
I'm really glad to have something back in front of us that we can work through
... We're making progress.