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I finally got a chance to review the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, the federal national paid sick leave program, and it's sadly disappointing.
That being said, it's not necessarily Ottawa's fault. Paid sick leave is best delivered by provincial governments. #cdnpoli
That being said, it's not necessarily Ottawa's fault. Paid sick leave is best delivered by provincial governments. #cdnpoli
What does the program do? You can get up to $500 per week for two weeks if you're sick with a requirement that you have labour income of over $5000 in one of the last two years and you need to miss 60% of a week to qualify.
So what's the problem?
Right off the bat, this isn't a full replacement income. Why does that undermine the public health value? Workers still take a financial hit if they stay home. So guess what? The worker with the sore throat might very well still come in.
Right off the bat, this isn't a full replacement income. Why does that undermine the public health value? Workers still take a financial hit if they stay home. So guess what? The worker with the sore throat might very well still come in.
Second, the 60% requirement is pretty darn odd. In a sense it means 9-5 workers will take at least 3 days off if they take any. That might be good in some situations, but will also further disincentivize use and, on net, undermine its public health rationale.
Third, the prior year income requirement is not as large a deal, but I don't see a good policy rationale from excluding new workers or those returning from long term unemployment from a program that is basically about public health.
Last, there is a delay in payment. Rather than providing the benefit through the workplace so there would be no disruption in income, workers need to apply and receive a benefit at some future date. This will further disincentivize its usage.
Given how much policy work was done around developing an evidence based sick leave plan some of these design flaws are pretty glaring. The most obvious explanation is that this was about cost minimization. Each of these debatable policy choices substantially lower the price tag.
On net will this help? It will, but we left a lot of gains on the table and I don't understand how we ended up where we did and there are certainly some US states with superior sick leave regimes.
How can we make the best of it? Provinces can stop up to the plate. They can legislate mandatory paid sick leave that supplements this program.
For example, along with guaranteeing the right to take 10 days of leave, they could mandate employers to top up to full income replacement and cover situations where less than 60% of a week is missed.
Provinces could then leave those costs to firms or cover a share of them.
Provinces could then leave those costs to firms or cover a share of them.
The truly unfixable part at this point is that delayed delivery. 100% avoidable and a huge detriment to the program being used as it should.
I'm walking away pretty disappointed having done a bunch of policy design work in the area & having seen the BC government bargain hard for this program.
If we landed here for $ reasons, so be it. But if these were just errors, bureaucrats should pick up the phone.
If we landed here for $ reasons, so be it. But if these were just errors, bureaucrats should pick up the phone.
Last addition to this thread. The @bcfed captured the essence of problem pretty well: this is a reasonable enough benefit, but it's not paid sick leave. https://twitter.com/bcfed/status/1296592828617785344
