Opinion: Sask. needs to protect jobs of those receiving cancer treatment

Saskatchewan residents with cancer face losses in income. They shouldn’t have to lose their jobs as well.
While cancer doesn’t wait, your job should. It’s time to expand unpaid job-protected illness leave in Saskatchewan.

Imagine you have just been diagnosed with cancer and you need to be off work for several weeks, perhaps months, to undergo treatment. You have young children, and your income is critical to balancing your family’s budget and paying the bills.

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Now imagine your employer doesn’t offer long-term leave, and the financial support available to you through the federal EI sickness benefit isn’t enough to make ends meet.

You have a community of support rallying behind you, but with no guarantees from your employer that your job will be safe while facing lengthy treatment, you lie awake at night filled with worry.

That’s a real fear for too many Saskatchewan residents. And with two in five Canadians expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, it’s a reality some of us will face.

Saskatchewan law provides 12 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave. If you are too sick to work, you can be terminated after the 12-week protected period. The average length of cancer treatment and recovery is 24 to 36 weeks for the two most common types of cancer in Canada, breast and colorectal cancer.

Of those diagnosed with cancer in Canada, nearly 40 per cent are in their working years, ages 20 to 64. With a growing population and studies showing a rising number of young adults being diagnosed with cancer globally, we can expect that number will increase.

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As cancer treatments improve, we see many people ready and able to return to work following treatment. More people are surviving cancer and living longer with the disease than ever before.

That means there are people willing and eager to get back to work — to have their life return to a new normal after their cancer experience. They deserve to know they have a job to come back to.

Living in Saskatchewan means we have fewer protections than other Canadians. Quebec provides 26 weeks and Nova Scotia provides 27 weeks of unpaid job-protected leave. Manitoba tabled legislation to support 27 weeks in the spring.

Ontario, New Brunswick and PEI have conducted public consultations and are expected to align their employment laws similarly.

Yes, there are some protections in place. The Saskatchewan human rights framework makes it illegal to terminate an employee on illness leave.

While this is technically accurate, the reality tells a different story. Cases of termination during cancer treatment can occur despite these protections, forcing individuals into lengthy legal battles.

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This puts the onus on the person with cancer to fight for their right to be employed. A job-protected leave policy ensures that right is afforded up front.

The federal EI sickness benefit now offers 26 weeks of paid time off for those with an illness like cancer. The Canadian Cancer Society spent years calling for change, because the previous 15 weeks didn’t cover the time it takes for many to undergo treatment and recover from their cancer.

We fought hard for Canadians to receive 26 weeks of paid time off work to get well. Now, we ask that Saskatchewan does its part to ensure citizens have job security while they undergo lifesaving treatment and recovery.

The solution is relatively simple. The Saskatchewan government need only expand the province’s unpaid job-protected illness leave policy to a reasonable length of time that reflects the reality of cancer. To us, that length should be 26 weeks, to align with the federal EI sickness benefit.

This election, reducing financial adversity for Saskatchewan cancer patients should be a priority. By expanding unpaid job-protected illness leave to 26 weeks, Saskatchewan can help reduce the financial burden on cancer patients. Because while cancer doesn’t wait, your job should.

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Andrea Seale is chief executive officer of the Canadian Cancer Society.

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