Legal bill $2.5M and counting in fight to deny moms benefits

Federal lawyers have racked up a legal bill of more than $2.36 million fighting a group of women who allegedly were wrongly denied sickness benefits while they were on maternity leave.

The costs, revealed in an access to information request filed by The Canadian Press, show the Justice Department added about $300,000 to its bill between early 2016 and last June to fight a case the Liberals once vowed to drop.

That brings the total federal bill on the case to more than $2.5 million when factoring in previously released costs from a second department involved in the litigation.

Jennifer McCrea, the woman at the centre of the case, and her lawyer wonder why the government can’t end their case when it settled with former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr for $10.5 million and offered up to $750 million to victims of the Sixties Scoop.

“It’s the only right thing to do and I believe in the strength of our case,” said lawyer Stephen Moreau.

McCrea said she hasn’t given up hope the Liberals will settle, as the party promised at the end of the 2015 election, but admits it may finally mean getting their day in court. “I’m upset that this is taking so long,” she said. “I’m in too deep and too long to give up on it, so absolutely we intend to continue the fight.”

It was two years ago this weekend, just over a week before voting day, that the NDP and Liberals vowed to immediately drop opposition to the case if either became government.

Instead, Moreau said, the Liberals, like the previous Conservative government, continue to fight every element of the case.

Parliament decided in 2002 to allow those who were diagnosed with cancer, for instance, to access 15 extra weeks of employment insurance payments in addition to a year’s worth of maternity leave benefits.

McCrea was diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2011, while on maternity leave. She had a double mastectomy in August 2011, and was deemed cancer-free shortly afterwards. But she was denied sickness benefits. Her claim alleges thousands of others were also denied benefits between 2002 and 2013.