Eventually, maternity and parental benefits should be made a universal benefit to recognize the vital social role of parenting especially in the first two years of life. But this only covers a small portion of working Canadians. Provincial labour legislation needs to incorporate the same changes. Requiring employers to offer the same or similar work to employees after one year of maternity and parental leave is likely to be resisted by some provinces and some businesses. Businesses and unions can play an important part in enabling all eligible parents to take the full leave.
Larger firms can make the necessary changes as part of their internal employment policies.
Unions could negotiate similar changes as part of their collective bargaining. These kinds of voluntary changes should facilitate the change in provincial legislation to provide the right for parents to the same or a similar job after maternity or parental leave. The government could have made a significant improvement in the lives of poor families with a significant investment in social housing. After withdrawing from social housing in 1993 thereby contributing to the present housing crisis the federal government now seems ready to re-enter the field of social housing through a municipal infrastructure program. But that funding is contingent on reaching agreement with provinces, municipalities and the private sector by the end of 2000.