Women hoping for good news about maternity leaves
Moms-to-be with too few work hours concerned they will be shorted time off
Expectant mothers are anxiously waiting to see what measures the federal government will take to help them keep their planned maternity leaves.
With layoffs across the country due to COVID-19, many moms-to-be say they don’t have the required 600 work hours to take planned maternity leaves or will have greatly reduced time with their newborns because they’ve already gone on employment insurance (EI).
“There are so many people that are just worried about the same thing,” said Tamara Kalagian-Haeni of St. Catharines, who’s due in August with her second child.
“It’s just stressful because it’s not my fault I’ve been laid off both my jobs and can’t get my hours in.”
Under current federal rules, a pregnant woman must accumulate 600 insured hours of work in the 52 weeks before the start of her maternity claim or since the start of her last claim.
Kalagian-Haeni went back to work in July after maternity leave for her first child. She and her husband
found out in December they are expecting their second.
With two part-time jobs as a supply teacher for District School Board of Niagara and at a retail store, she expected to accumulate the 600 hours required before her August due date.
“I’ve been working really hard since December to get my hours and all of a sudden come midMarch and I’m out of options,” she said.
“I have no more job. I don’t have anything I can do to get those hours, and now there’s a possibility of, ‘What if I don’t get time off with my baby?’” Pregnant women who do have enough hours are also facing issues.
Ashley Kasper of Niagara Falls, also due with her second child in August, accumulated her 600 hours before she was laid off from a child care centre on March 13 due to COVID-19.
She’s now inadvertently eating into her planned 12-month maternity leave by collecting employment insurance. She wasn’t switched over to the government’s COVID-19 emergency aid program, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit fund. She said she’s never been laid off or on employment insurance before, except when she took maternity leave when her son was born three and a half years ago. She had no idea applying for EI due to the COVID-19 layoff would affect her upcoming maternity time.
At this rate, she’ll have used up five months of her 12-month maternity leave. Even if she’s able to go back to work, she said she’ll have to start from scratch to collect the 600 hours. That would be impossible to do before her due date.
“I’d like my last mat leave to be a full mat leave,” she said. “It’s important to me to get that time with her, especially with child care and nursing.”
The federal government has recently given pregnant women hope their concerns will be addressed, but no details or timing have been released.
In an interview with the Canadian Press last Friday, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough said pregnant women will receive help from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit fund.
“They’re going to have full access to their maternity and parental entitlements and they’ll receive the accurate dollar amounts, but it feels like this is taking long because we’re solving problems on a daily basis,” Qualtrough said.
“They will get what they are entitled to ... because there is not a scenario where we don’t make this right for people.”
St. Catharines MP Chris Bittle said he’s aware of concerns and it’s on the government’s radar screen.
“We have Canadians’ backs and we will adapt to ensure all Canadians are taken care of,” he said. “We’re working on it.”
For Haylie Taylor, who lives north of Barrie but is on the same Facebook pregnancy group as Kalagian-Haeni, any announcement will be welcome soon.
“It would be nice to have some sense of relief because it’s stressful,” she said, explaining COVID-19 has brought fear and anxiety about whether she’ll be able to deliver at a hospital and if her husband, an essential worker, will bring it home.
Taylor said she’s been working for years, but went on EI for two weeks when she moved back to Ontario from Alberta in September for her husband’s work. She would have accumulated more than enough hours to start maternity leave in June after working full-time since November at a daycare in a school.
Now she’s short 119 hours and went on EI two and a half months before her maternity leave was to begin. She’s been told she’ll lose six months of maternity leave as a result.
“If they don’t do something it looks like I’ll have to put my child into child care and go back to work when he’s five months old.”