Equal EI Benefits for Adoptive Parents

Call to Action

The Issue

Currently, adoptive parents are eligible for 35 weeks of EI benefits. However, they are ineligible for the additional 15 weeks of maternity leave benefits available to those women who become mothers through birth, rather than adoption, despite the fact that adoptive parents pay into the EI Fund at rates equivalent to those of birthparents.  

We are asking for the Government of Canada to create an Adoption EI Benefit Plan.

Our Challenge

We challenge the Government of Canada to recognize that adoptive parents and children have some of the same significant issues that families formed through birth require; inclusive but not limited to the additional leave time to bond and attach. Adoption professionals and researchers around the world identify a few of the issues facing adoptive parents as:

• The need to attach and bond (from parent to child or child to parent)
• Health issues or developmental delays some adopted children face
• Language barriers and cultural adjustments experienced by parents and children who have gone through the international adoption process, which is often onerous and fatiguing
• Potential post-adoption depression (clinically recognized, as is post-natal depression)
• Issues of loss, trauma, abuse, neglect or multiple caregivers

It is crucial for adoptive families to be given the same foundation as birth families to ensure the greatest potential in their children.

We ask that the Government of Canada create an Employment Insurance Benefit Plan for adoptive families that is financially equivalent to what is offered to biological mothers in the EI Maternity Benefit Plan: an Adoption EI Benefit Plan.

Equality Abroad

In the United Kingdom, adoptive parents qualify for the same amount of maternity and parental leave as biological parents. The United Kingdom has about 2,000 children adopted from care annually. In 2001, the U.K. brought legislation in to adjust this previous inequity. An article in, the Independent, illustrates the rationale behind the decision: “During a consultation exercise mounted by the Department of Trade and Industry, adoption agencies said it was essential for adopted children to be able to enjoy the full-time attention of at least one of their new parents when they first became a family.”

The Economics

Prime Minister Harper has suggested that it would cost about $147 million to extend benefits nation-wide to the self-employed. The fund would be voluntary and it should be self-financing once people paid into the fund through premiums.

Our suggestion is self-financing too. To extend the maternity leave benefit to all adoptive families, thereby increasing the chances of success that each adoptive child has in bonding with its new family, a win-win for everyone, it would cost the government in the range of $15 to $28 million per year. A relatively small amount when it comes to government spending. The higher figure is based on an estimate of 4,450 adoptions each year with each applicant being reimbursed at the maximum level. In reality it’s more likely that about 4,000 adoptive parents would be eligible to claim more like $250 a week in maternity leave benefits if they were extended to adoptive parents.

It costs roughly $45,000 to have a child raised in foster care annually. If this change results in more adoptions and fewer children in foster care then the move will certainly pay for itself quickly. If Canadian families formed through adoption are given access to greater supports right from the start we all benefit. What we know from experience is that adoptive families that are not nurtured and supported fail. Numerous children each year come back into the system when an adoption dissolves. Nobody keeps statistics on adoption disruptions in Canada. Children in families whose adoptions fail go on to become increasingly difficult to place as a result of continued rejection and escalating behaviours. These are kids who often grow up to “age out” of the system. Without a family, without support, they wind up on the streets or in jail. Often they will often go on to have their own children apprehended and perpetuate this costly and devastating cycle.

Next Steps

Let us join together in this Call to Action so that adoptive parents can enjoy the same rights as other Canadian families. A Sample Letter to your MP has been drafted for you to use and we encourage you to:

1)    Write to your MP

2)    Request a meeting with your MP

3)    Circulate the message to others

4)    Keep the ACC updated on your activities

More Information?

The ACC will be updating the website as new information becomes available. To ensure that you are made aware of our updates, please be sure to sign-up to our e-news distribution list by contacting, info@adoption.ca. You may also join our AdoptionCanada group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdoptionCanada/

Questions?

Should you have any questions or concerns about our Call to Action, please do not hesitate to contact the ACC: 1-888-54-ADOPT or info@adoption.ca. Together, we can bring about change.