Mat Leave

At the end of this month, I will be going on mat leave. I am really looking forward to it and realize that I’m fortunate to be in a position where I can take the maximum allowable time off. My partner is happily employed and can carry most of our financial burden for the first year of our baby’s life. EI will be contributing 55% of my modest pre-baby income, which, even at 100%, is below BC’s living wage (check out the CCPA’s latest report online) but that’s a whole different entry.

My full maternity will actually comprise of 15 weeks maternity leave and 35 weeks parental leave, which, at a total of 50 paid weeks, is the maximum I would get anywhere in the Americas. In Cuba, I would qualify for 18 weeks at 100% pay. In Mexico, 12 weeks at 100%, and, in the Bahamas, 13 weeks at 60%. In the US, shockingly, my maternity leave would not be guaranteed at all. It would be left in the hands of my employer. If the company I work for was covered under the Family Medical Leave Act, I would be guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave… That’s right. Unpaid. Some employee-friendly companies would offer up to 6 weeks paid time off.

Although Canada has a generous maternity leave program, a few countries in Europe have leave programs that rival ours in terms of both time off and pay. In Sweden, for example, parents can split 16 months of paid time off, with the “minority” parent taking a minimum of 2 of those months. In Denmark, the parents can split up to 52 weeks off with full benefit. In Bulgaria, Moms can take the first year off at full pay, and the second year off at minimum salary.

Getting back to my completely respectable Canadian mat leave, I wanted to post a few introductory remarks about the benefit for first time Mom. Detailed information is available at the (extensive) Service Canada website… I present you with the basics:

- In order to qualify for leave under the EI program, you must have worked a total of 600 hours in the last year. That’s actually only 15 weeks of full time work.

- You must notify your employer of your expected due date, in writing, a few weeks before that date.

- You should apply for the benefit as soon as you stop working. Your HR department will provide you with a Record of Employment, which is required for completing the online application process.

- There is a 2-week waiting period before your benefits kick in. If you’re applying for both maternity and parental leave, you only have to wait once. This means that your actual leave is 2 weeks longer than your paid leave. In my case, that means I will actually qualify for 52 weeks off, 50 of which will be paid.

- As mentioned, you will receive 55% of your average income (paid in the last 26 weeks), minus federal and provincial tax deductions.

- You cannot work while on maternity leave, but you can earn a little bit extra while on parental leave: up to $75 or 40% of your weekly benefit, whichever is greater.

- Some employers top up your mat benefits. In those cases, if you don’t return to your position at the end of your leave, you will likely have to repay any supplemental benefits you receive during that period. In any case, you do not have to repay your EI benefits if you do not return to work.

Waste Diversion in Three Cities

At one point, if you were adamant about keeping your food scraps out of the landfill and lived in an apartment, your only option was worm composting. My Dad brought a worm bin home one day when I was in junior high. The starter kit included a bin with a lid, some bedding, soil, and a bucket of worms. The intention was that we would begin depositing most of our fruit and veggie waste in the bin, which sat on the floor in our kitchen. The waste would feed the worms, which would in turn process the waste into rich soil that we could use in the community garden my Dad had started that Spring. My Mom put a quick stop to the project, though. It was her or the worms.

When I was living in Toronto in 2005, the city debuted the Green Bin Program, which made it possible for homeowners to divert their organic waste from landfills without the help of worms. I lived in a low rise at the time, which was included in the initial rollout; however, most multi-unit apartment buildings and condominiums weren't included until late 2008. The program made the city responsible for weekly curbside pick up of biodegradable items, such as fruit and vegetable scraps, paper towels, and coffee grinds, materials that make up about 1/3 of all household waste (City of Toronto). In combination with the Blue Bin Program and other initiatives, Toronto has managed to steadily increase its residential waste diversion rate, up to 44% in 2008, although the number will likely fall short of the 2010 target of 70%. The city is currently looking at building new organic waste and mixed waste processing facilities that would allow further program expansion.

I am now living in Vancouver, which has just this past year started a draft Solid Waste Management Plan that includes a waste diversion target of 70% by the year 2015 (Metro Vancouver). Although the city currently boasts a 55% waste diversion rate, I am a little concerned that we aren't more ambitious about our target and doing more to get there in a shorter period of time. There are a number of innovative waste diversion projects taking place not just in Canada, but all over the world, and I think it would work to our advantage to get a little creative with our solutions. I think it's also important to involve the public along the way, and make them accountable for the results. After all, it is to our collective benefit when we succeed.

In 2007, I spent 6 months on a student exchange in the picturesque City of Ghent in Flanders, Belgium. With a population of 250,000, the city runs a program that encourages people to divert their waste in a very simple way. In order for the city to pick up your waste from the curb, all materials have to be separated and deposited in official IVAGO bags (IVAGO being the local waste collecting and treating company). IVAGO garbage bags can be purchased at any grocery store for about EUR 75 cents each, while blue recycle bags, used to recycle selected packaging material, such as plastic bottles and drink cartons, are about five times cheaper at EUR 13 cents each. Glass bottles can be left outside in any large reusable plastic container, while paper and cardboard must be tied together with a rope. Finally, organic waste must be deposited in IVAGO containers, which have been marked with a special electronic chip that actually helps keep track of your total household organic waste and charges you accordingly for processing (Stad Gent). It is important to note here that the city also provides no-cost or low cost composting bins.

The City of Ghent has seen a decrease in the amount of household waste that could be the result of both improved separation (and therefore, higher diversion of recyclable and organic material away from landfills), and preventative behaviours, such as residents buying more fresh fruit and vegetables (and avoiding packaging altogether). The fact that the collection of unsorted household waste is more expensive than the collection of separated waste incites residents to do their part.

I recently found out that innovative pay-per-bag and pay-as-you-throw schemes are quite common throughout Europe, and it would be interesting to see them applied in Canada. I think that getting people more involved in their own waste management is the only way to get them thinking about the serious consequences of our collective trash problems. Moreover, if we were able to keep track of our waste volume, using computer chips for example, and to set personal goals for diversion, this would result in an overall 70% diversion rate in no time at all.

Alternative Federal Budget

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released their Alternative Federal Budget 2009: Beyond the Crisis last Friday. It's available in PDF from their website. The report outlines tests for measuring the success of the federal budget, which is scheduled for release later today. The CCPA outlines its main areas of concern in the short run: the restructuring of EI, poverty reduction, investment in public infrastructure and homegrown industry, as well as a focus on government spending over tax cuts. According to the CCPA, a budget which fails to address these issues will also fail the Canadian people and will intensify an already dire economic situation.

I hope Flaherty's plan doesn't involve lulling Canadians with tax cuts.

I'm definitely not an economist, but I have understood a few basic economic constructs when somebody has taken the time to explain them to me. And the most important one I learned is that debt doesn't have to be a bad word. The severity of our debt is not simply defined by it's dollar value. Debt has to be understood in context and the best variable for this comparison is GDP, which is the total measure of the market value of the goods and services produced within our borders.

Canada's 2008 GDP is estimated at $1.564 trillion (according to The World Factbook), and our accumulated public debt is 62.3% of this, so about $974 billion.

If Canada was an average Canadian family with an income of $60,600 (Statistics Canada), that percentage of debt would equal to $37,753. In reality, the average Canadian household's debt is about $44,500, or 73.4 % of household income (Statistics Canada). (Note that I'm using 2005 data in order to compare apples to apples...)

So why are our collective purse strings so much tighter than our own? Do we believe that tax cuts and a few extra bucks in our own pocket will make for a better Canada?

Just a short intro

It's not by coincidence that I've decided to start this blog this week. On January 20th, Obama became the 44th President of the United States, and I believe in him and what he stands for. I know he's not infallible and I won't agree with everything he does; he probably won't either. But I am excited by the prospect of a new green economy that will change the way we live. I am looking forward to new solutions that are not solely profit driven, but originate in a responsibility for our actions and a foresight for the future. I hope that change means we reinvent our value systems and how we connect to the Earth, and the people that share it with us.