Menopause Goes to Parliament: A Global Legislative Series, Post 2
On June 11, 2026, I gave menopause workplace testimony to the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women, and I am thrilled that Canada’s government is taking this issue seriously enough to study it formally. Here is what I told them, why the steps still ahead matter, and what I am doing to build on the moment properly.
When I first shared that I had testified before Parliament, the response caught me off guard. That single post reached thousands of people and drew dozens of comments.
The Moment Itself
The House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women, known as FEWO, had announced a formal study on the labour force impacts of menopause and perimenopause. It called witnesses, experts, physicians, labour leaders, employers, and advocates, to help inform what may become Canada’s first federal policy recommendations on menopause at work. I was one of those experts.
Sitting in that committee room, I could feel the weight of the moment before I said a single word. It is a formal room, arranged as an open rectangle. The Chair sits at the head of the table, flanked by the clerk and the analysts from the Library of Parliament. Members of Parliament line the sides of the table on either side. Witnesses sit at the opposite end, facing the Chair directly, with a strict speaking order and a clock running on every intervention. I was seated alongside other expert witnesses, physicians and researchers who had spent careers studying exactly what I was there to describe from lived experience. There is no small talk built into a room like that, only your turn, and then the next question. Here is exactly what I opened with:
I spent more than 26 years in the corporate world. In all those years, I never once heard the word menopause spoken at work. Not once.
For years, menopause was invisible in our workplaces. On that Thursday, it was being debated in Parliament as a workforce issue, an economic issue, and a public health issue.
The Four Recommendations
I put four recommendations before the committee, and I have repeated them in different forms since, because they are the whole argument in miniature.
First, establish minimum workplace standards for menopause education and awareness, the same way organizations are already expected to provide harassment and mental health training. In practice, that could look like a structured e-learning course, delivered the same way most companies already deliver harassment training online, not a new format HR has to invent from scratch. Every HR leader I have said this to understands it instantly, because it maps onto something they already do.
Second, require every organization to have a formal menopause policy, so support depends on a documented standard rather than on which manager a woman happens to have. A real policy names concrete things: flexible scheduling during flare-ups, temperature control options, and a clear point of contact, not a values statement with nothing underneath it.
Third, make menopause care a routine component of primary care, because most working women cannot afford to spend years moving between providers before receiving an accurate diagnosis. British Columbia’s move to cover select menopausal hormone therapy under its pharmacare plan, and Ontario’s work on menopause care quality standards, are both small proof that this is possible inside the health system we already have.
Fourth, fund dedicated Canadian research, national data collection, and a public awareness campaign comparable to what Australia and the UK have already done. Australia’s federal government committed 12.8 million dollars to a national perimenopause and menopause awareness campaign that began running in June 2026, alongside 4.4 million dollars for new clinical guidelines and professional development for health providers. The UK opened new Women’s Health Hubs across the country through 2026 and launched a national women’s health website in March 2026 with menopause named as a core topic. To date, Canada does not have any of these commitments in place, but hopefully that will come from this study and its recommendations.
The point I most wanted the committee to hear sits underneath all four:
Employers are not failing menopausal employees because they are indifferent. They are failing them because they do not know what menopause looks like at work, and nobody has given them the language, the training, or the framework to recognize it.
Legislation can set the floor. Training managers and HR leads, plus educating staff, is what builds the house.
Other Voices in the Room
I was not the only person that day making the case that menopause belongs on the labour force agenda. Dr. Colleen Norris, also on that panel, corroborated something I had said about the link between menopause and brain health with her own account of three colleagues in Calgary who had paid out of pocket for MRIs to investigate symptoms they were told, for years, were just stress. A researcher’s evidence sitting next to a lived account is a more convincing pair than either one alone, and that is exactly what happened in that room.
Julie Drapeau reinforced the economic case with figures from the Menopause Foundation of Canada, an organization whose research I have referenced many times before: menopause costs the Canadian economy an estimated 3.5 billion dollars annually, including 237 million dollars specifically in employer productivity losses. Hearing that number spoken into the same official record as my own testimony was a reminder that this argument no longer rests on any one voice.
The Answer I Never Got to Finish
Committee testimony runs on a strict clock, and mine ran out mid-sentence. Responding to a question from MP Laila Goodridge, my answer was cut off: “I did it myself, and I had to go back…” and the meeting moved on. The Vice-Chair invited witnesses to send additional comments in writing, once directly after my answer was cut short, and again while closing the meeting and apologizing for delays caused by votes in the House.
I am taking that invitation up, because a written submission becomes part of the permanent record and feeds directly into the recommendations the committee eventually reports to the House of Commons. Written submissions to a House of Commons committee are typically translated into both official languages and circulated to every member, which means they carry real weight in shaping the eventual report.
A letter to the clerk is not the only place I am putting this work. I already run corporate talks that bring menopause education directly to leadership teams, and I sell an e-learning course on menopause built specifically for the North American workplace, covering exactly the training piece my first recommendation calls for. Legislation is one lever. The actual training infrastructure companies can use right now, while Canada waits for a federal framework, is the other, and it already exists.
What Happens Next, and Why It Matters for Canada
The study motion commits the committee to report its findings and recommendations to the House of Commons, and under the House’s own Standing Order 109, the government must table a comprehensive response within 120 calendar days of that report being tabled. Canada now has a specific, public timeline to follow for implementing action on menopause and the workforce, something this country has never had before.
When the report and the government’s response land, they have the potential to become the foundation for the kind of national standards other countries have already started building mandatory education, funded research, and a public campaign that reaches women before they are blindsided by symptoms nobody prepared them for. A federal framework would give every employer in the country the same floor to build from, rather than leaving support to depend on which province, which employer, or which manager a woman happens to have. That is the outcome worth watching for.
I said this to close my testimony, and it is still exactly what I believe:
Menopause is inevitable, but suffering is not, and women shouldn’t have to be leaving the workforce.
I was thrilled to be invited as an expert participant in something this important, and I am looking forward to seeing the committee’s final report and the steps that follow. Real change in how Canada supports women through menopause at work could shape the experience of generations of women still to come, and I intend to keep showing up for that work.
Companies do not have to wait for legislation to start building this. My corporate talks and e-learning courses are already built and ready to bring menopause education into your organization today, well ahead of any federal framework arriving.
Aimee Debow is the Founder of Menovate and a certified Menopause Coach. She appeared as a witness before the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women in June 2026. Menovate helps Canadian organizations build menopause-supportive workplaces through corporate talks, e-learning, and HR advisory services. Learn more at menovate.ca.
