Last week, Jean-Yves Duclos, the minister of families, children and social development, announced new family care policies designed to increase flexibility for people needing to care for children and other family members. The new policies increase parental leave from 12 to 18 months and offer caregiver benefits of 15 weeks for sick or injured adult members of families and 35 weeks for sick or injured children. There are many appealing features of these plans, especially the caregiver benefits, which are now extended not just to parents but to other family members providing care and also allow for a broader range of medical professionals to certify the claim. This makes it easier for families to rally around the needs of family members. However, it is unclear if these new policies solve the problems they were meant to address, especially when it comes to parental leave.

The mass killings at the gay nightclub in Orlando have cast a terrible pall on Pride season this year. One recurring theme in the discussion is the importance of gay nightclubs as safe spaces - refuges, havens or sacred places - where members of the LGBTQ community can let their guard down and be themselves. Gay bars and clubs have long been understood to have this important role in the gay community, primarily because there are few other spaces where LGBTQ people can truly feel safe. On the surface, the business communities in Canada and the United States, two countries where gay marriage has been legalized, may well believe their workspaces seek to do the same.