As Mountain Equipment Co-op makes major changes to remain viable, the Vancouver-based retailer is investing in its frontline employees. MEC converted more than 950 jobs classified as casual, non-permanent roles into full- and part-time positions. Those employees will now receive MEC’s benefits package, which includes extended health and dental coverage, a tuition assistance benefit, a […]
Major Canadian insurers are no longer resetting the long-term disability pre-existing condition clause for women whose benefits coverage lapsed during their maternity leave when they return to work. Women covered by these insurers — which include the Co-operators Group Ltd., Desjardins Insurance, Empire Life Insurance Co., iA Financial Group, Manulife Financial Corp., RBC Insurance and Sun Life — […]
Roughly 3,200 Canadian National Railway Co. workers are on strike with outstanding issues including time-off provisions and lifetime caps on certain benefits. The strike, which began at midnight on Nov. 19, has seen conductors, train personnel and yard workers represented by the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference pushing for further bargaining progress on these issues and others, including safety and fatigue. […]
The Liberal Party of Canada is set to form a minority government after Tuesday’s federal election when it won 157 out of 338 seats. While the party made few health-care and pension promises in its election platform, the win puts a spotlight on the Liberals’ 2019 budget promises. Most notably, following the release of the final expert panel’s […]
When Fidelity Canada’s employees are facing challenges around their work-life balance, the company offers support through a number of absence management programs. The financial services company provides five weeks of vacation, one paid personal day and two paid volunteer days, as well as a sabbatical program that’s available to employees who’ve been with the company […]
The Liberal Party announced a number of campaign promises this week, including making maternity and parental benefits tax-free, introducing a 15-week leave for adoptive parents, strengthening the old-age security benefit and increasing the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan survivor’s benefit. If re-elected, the Liberal government said it will work to establish guaranteed paid family […]
With the federal election about a month away, Canada’s political parties are rolling out their election platforms, making a host of promises to improve health care, employment insurance, the minimum wage and pension legislation. If elected, the Liberal Party of Canada, New Democratic Party and Green Party of Canada are all promising to implement a national pharmacare program. […]
The federal Conservative Party is promising to make employment insurance maternity and parental benefits tax-free. The party is proposing a 15 per cent tax credit for any income earned under the two EI programs. “Parents should be able to put their energy toward those critical first few months, and not have to worry so much […]
Sweden, Norway and Iceland offer the most family-friendly policies of all 41 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and European Union countries, according to a report from Unicef’s Innocenti Research Centre. The report ranked the countries on the duration of their paid maternity, paternity and parental leave. It also measured the share of children under […]
The Pensions Policy Institute and U.K. consumer advocacy group Which? are teaming up to recommend to the U.K. government that working mothers should receive a top-up to their pensions in an effort to close the pension gender gap. The groups’ analysis found a woman in the U.K. who took time off for childcare responsibilities would put an average […]