Canadian dads take more parental leave

REBECCA DUBE

Globe and Mail Update

June 23, 2008 at 12:34 PM EDT

TORONTO — Fathers across the country are taking more time off when their children are born, according to new research from Statistics Canada, and Quebec dads are five times more likely to take paternity leave than men in the rest of Canada.

From 2005 to 2006, the percentage of men claiming paternity benefits in Quebec increased from 32 to 56 per cent, while the number of men taking parental leave in the rest of the country remained steady at 11 per cent.

Over the same time period, the average amount of time taken for paternity leave outside Quebec rose from 11 weeks to 17 weeks.

Andrew Bell took parental leave in 2004 to look after his daughters Sasha, then 3, and Maeve, 8 months, at his home in Toronto. (Louie Palu/The Globe and Mail file photo)

Researchers can explain why Quebeckers are more likely to take paternity leave: The province introduced a new parental leave program in 2006, offering five weeks of non-transferable leave for fathers as well as higher benefits. So far it's the only province to go beyond the federal parental leave program.

As for the overall trend toward longer paternity leave, researchers say those numbers may be reflecting a larger social shift.

“An important aspect is the cultural change in fathers' participation and involvement with children, from parental leave to child care,” says Katherine Marshall, a senior analyst with Statistics Canada.

Money is one of the main concerns influencing decisions on parental leave. Fathers are 2.5 times more likely to take paternity leave if their spouse earns the same or more than them.

There's also a use-it-or-lose-it factor. Fathers outside Quebec were 3.4 times more likely to take paternity leave if their spouses did not claim any parental benefits.

“This suggests that when a family is at risk of not receiving any benefits (which is more often the case outside Quebec), fathers significantly increase their participation rate,” the Statistics Canada study says.

In 2001, the federal Parental Benefits Program increased shareable parental leave benefits from 10 to 35 weeks. In 2006, Quebec introduced its own Parental Insurance Program, including a five-week non-transferable leave for fathers. As a result, the proportion of fathers claiming paid parental leave increased significantly—from 3% in 2000 to 10% in 2001, and again from 15% in 2005 to 20% in 2006.

Among the study's highlights:

• The most common reason for eligible fathers not claiming benefits was family choice at 40 per cent, followed by difficulty taking time off work at 22 per cent and financial issues at 17 per cent.

• Internationally, 13 of 20 OECD countries have national paid parental leave programs with at least two weeks available to the father. Of these, nine use legislation to encourage fathers' participation.

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Commentary

Quebec sets an example for the rest of Canada in many areas, they value family and parenting.
One main reason why you don't see fathers parenting is because we have a group of feminist judges hell bent on removing men from children whenever possible by any means.

Canada fails Canadian children because Canada unlike countries like Australia, does not have a legal presumption of equal parenting after separation.

In Canada, mentally ill women can simply make any outragious allegation in family court and remove a father from the lives of their children permanently. Throw in feminist lawyers with a pathological hatred of men in front of judges who hate men and it results in total devastation beyond the comprehension of 99.999% of Canadians.

Judges do not require psychological screening. If you meet a police officer or pilot odds are both have undergone exhaustive psychological examination prior to hiring and undergo regular "performance monitoring" in one form of another.

Not so with the judiciary, once in power, their supervisory judges have next to no power to remove one of the newer judges. Once appointed its virtually a guaranteed life time appointment with absolute immunity from civil and criminal prosecution for virtually anything they do on or off the job.

Canada has a very serious problem with Superior court and Appeal court judges who flagrantly abuse their power.

If a man actually has success at say the court of appeal, the decision will be accompanied by a "costs order", thats right, the same successful man will be hit with massive costs orders or even worse, security for costs for having been successful in court.

A very large number of Canadian Children will continue to be deprived of fathers. Canadian children will grow up in dysfunctional homes and never know the love of a father, thanks to the underbelly of society who make up a considerable percentage of the Family Court Judiciary.

Ottawa mens Centre dot com

 

Commentary

 

Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: Buke Fifty sounds like an aggressive feminist who thinks men are nothing more than sperm donors and a child support payor.

Real Women and Real Men, know that Real Children need real fathers and real mothers and not some woman looking or acting like a man pretending to be the "father figure" or a man dressed and acting like a woman pretending to be a mother.

Children need love and affection from both parents. Children learn very differently from mothers and fathers, each is unique and very important to a child's sense of identity, values and ability to function is determined by the functionality of the parents relationship if a child actually has heterosexual parents.

Canada has now made heterosexual families politically incorrect, now if you are a father odds are that elementary school with all female teachers are going to view almost anything with testicles as a threat to children.

Canada's birth rate is declining, why? because men are afraid to have children, increasingly men are choosing not to become fathers because of the probability of divorce, encouraged and promoted by a government that does not give a dam about the fact that children have a right to a mother and a father.

Canada's birthrate and its moral standards are spiraling downwards.
The only hope for change is that one day when the extremely unlikely event that politicians will think of Canada's future and the necessity of promoting marriage between men and women and legalizing a child's right to an equal relationship with both parents after separation. www.OttawaMensCentre.com Ottawa Mens Centre.com, from Ottawa, Canada wrote: In Ontario, the Ontario Court of Appeal and Superior Court engage in what amounts to a "War On Men". It means that almost any litigation between a man and a woman will result in a "feminist politically correct" decision that has little relevance to the law.

Take a look at the stats, it is almost unheard of for a man to receive spousal support from a woman. The fact is, very large numbers of men are sacrificing their careers to be full time parents while their wives careers rocket ahead and earn very high incomes.

Take the Ontario Court of appeal, the odds of a woman wining any issue is 20 times that of a man and in some issues, its almost unheard of for a man to have success.

The judges of the Ontario Court of Appeal just love "appearing to do justice" but doing justice is exactly what they are highly skilled at avoiding by engaging in a "war against men" and "Male Gender Apartheid", their tools, the use of "the process of justification", that is, he could have got a part time job as an astronaut on the space station while being a full time dad, or he must pay costs of $100,000 in order to have an appeal heard of a order made without notice or hearing terminating a child's right to a relationship with dad.

These sorts of decisions and far worse go on every day, don't expect to read them in "reported decisions", these are the very decisions the underbelly of the judiciary like to forget to report. www.OttawaMensCentre.com

 

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