Tuesday’s budget offers a large crop of small, feel-good initiatives. One such effort is a new benefit for compassionate leave that would take effect next year.

Tucked in among a host of new health-care spending initiatives, Ottawa is proposing a new six-week leave benefit for compassionate family care. The benefit will allow workers to take leave to care for a chronically or terminally ill child, spouse or parent.

It is expected that the benefit will be shared — for those in a two-parent household, for example, the benefit would be split between the parents to a total of six weeks. Individuals must qualify for the benefit and serve a two-week waiting period.

It is also expected that the Canadian Labour Code will be amended to preserve workers’ jobs should they take the leave. Presumably, similar provincial legislation will be amended to preserve the jobs of those who take the leave.

While the new benefit was announced as part of Ottawa’s massive new health-care spending efforts in the budget, this benefit will be funded out of the Employment Insurance scheme. The benefit is estimated to cost $86 million in fiscal 2003-04, and $221 million in 2004-05 and each year after that. The new benefit takes effect Jan. 4, 2004.

The new initiative is being pitched as a purely compassionate move, although one commentator suggested it may mark a shift in government policy away from institutionalized chronic care toward more home-based care.