In those exhausting days of early pregnancy, many mothers-to-be face a long to-do list that includes figuring out what to do about work. Newly pregnant Stephanie McLean figured her workplace parental leave policy might offer guidance. There was just one hurdle: it didn’t exist.
“I quickly discovered that there was nothing,” she says.
“There were no written policies, no guidelines, there was no information.”
McLean is the minister of Service Alberta and Status of Women. Her workplace is the provincial legislature. Instead of setting the agenda, it was stuck in the past.
“There wasn’t even any anecdotal information about even men having had children,” she says.
“And so I started to look for any part that would remotely speak to that, and found there were leave provisions in the rules for the legislature for specific things: death in the family, illness… but nothing mentioned about pregnancy or birth,” McLean says during an interview in the legislature cafeteria.
READ MORE: Baby boom spurs change in one of Alberta’s oldest institutions
Over her shoulder sits a very real symbol of how the institution is changing in the two years since she delivered her son.
“It’s very long overdue,” McLean says.
A stack of highchairs now sits against one wall of the legislature cafeteria. Despite school groups, public tours and families of staff long being welcomed into the facility, highchairs are a new addition. Some bits of food stuck to the back of one are evidence of their use.
“It actually took one of the elected officials getting pregnant for the legislature staff to discuss what might need to change in this building,” McLean says.
New signs point to the stroller-friendly exit. Change tables have been added to the public washrooms.
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“It’s a little bit surprising that there were absolutely no public change tables in this building,” McLean says, demonstrating the fold-down table that has been installed in the women’s washroom.
For the record, there’s one in the men’s room too.
“I like to really believe in equal-opportunity diaper changing,” laughs the minister.
There weren’t women’s washrooms either
MLAs don’t pay into Employment Insurance, and as such, don’t qualify for parental leave. And there is a financial penalty of $100 a day for missing more than 10 sitting days. The only exceptions are illness, injury, bereavement or official business.
“It’s very, very old law. It was written at a time where there were no women in the legislature,” McLean says.
“There were no women’s bathrooms in the legislature.”
(More on the bathrooms in a moment.)
There is something fitting about having the first MLA to grapple with the issue be the minister responsible for the status of women. At the time, the premier called the legislation around leave “archaic” and pledged to fix it.
READ MORE: Alberta looks to change ‘archaic’ legislation around MLA parental leave
Those rules remain in place, but McLean says the current Speaker wouldn’t penalize MLAs who deliver babies. She points to the $25-a-day childcare pilot project and minimum wage hike.
“It’s really important to us to ensure that other women have opportunities and access before we look internally at ourselves.”
McLean takes issue with how the current rules refer to penalties for MLAs who would require leave.
“You’re not doing something wrong by having a child, yet the way that it’s written is, ‘You ought to be penalized for that.’ So I don’t think that that is correct.”
In the meantime, under the dome, there’s a shift toward accommodating new parents. Off the Confederation Room, a former phone room has been transformed into a quiet space with a comfy chair, a diaper genie and a change pad. Parenting politicians can use the room to nurse or change a diaper.
But what about the bathrooms?
As for the lack of women’s washrooms, that didn’t change until the late 1990s. Before then, female MLAs and staff accessed a unisex washroom. Dedicated women-only facilities were only added during a renovation in 1997.
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