Canada Court Rules EI Denial After Maternity Leave Is Discriminatory

A maternity leave can interrupt paid work in exactly the way employment insurance is supposed to help cushion. But for six women who lost jobs around maternity and parental leave, the EI system instead shut the door.

The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled in their favour, finding that the challenged EI rules discriminated against women because of pregnancy and motherhood and violated section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A Charter win for mothers

The disputed provisions prevented women who had received maternity and parental benefits from receiving regular job-loss EI benefits they otherwise would have received.

Some were denied because they did not have enough insurable work hours after leave. Others were denied because they had already reached the 50-week cap on total benefits.

The court found the rules disproportionately burden women because pregnancy, childbirth and newborn care interrupt paid work in ways the EI scheme penalized.

“One of the grounds listed in section 15 is sex, and it is well-established that discrimination based on pregnancy and motherhood is sex-based discrimination,” the judges wrote, according to the source reporting.

The court’s conclusion was stark: women were being placed in a worse position because they had taken leave connected to having and caring for children.

How the EI rules hit

For many families, the issue only becomes clear after a job disappears.

Celia Johnston, who described being denied EI after maternity leave, said she had expected the system to be there when she needed it.

“It was something that I had never inquired about before and I had always paid for it throughout my career,” Johnston said.

After applying, she said she waited two months before being told she would receive nothing.

“To find myself in a position where you know that system ended up not supporting me, in a time where I needed it. I was incredibly disappointed and frustrated,” she said.

Lawyer Sibel Ataogul, who represented the six women, framed the case in broader terms.

“We’re not on vacation when we are on maternity leave and when we’re raising children, we are working,” Ataogul said.

She said the practical effect was unequal treatment between women whose paid work was interrupted by maternity and parental leave and workers who remained continuously in the labour force.

A case years in motion

The case began at the Social Security Tribunal, where the women first won. That decision was later overturned on appeal, and the dispute proceeded to the Federal Court of Appeal.

Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal backed the women’s challenge and has been involved in the case since 2018.

Fanny Labelle, with the organization, said she hopes Ottawa accepts the ruling.

“The six women that went to the legal just a small proportion,” Labelle said, adding that the group sees the issue as “a nationwide problem.”

Advocates say the ruling could affect hundreds or thousands of women across Canada who have been denied regular EI in the same situation.

Ottawa now has a deadline

The judges declared the discriminatory parts of the Employment Insurance Act invalid, but suspended that declaration for one year so the federal government can change the law.

Ottawa also faces a shorter clock: the federal government has 60 days to decide whether to take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. It has not announced an appeal.

Ataogul said the next step matters.

“We’re hoping that the Liberals will let this decision stand and not bring us to the Supreme Court and challenge a basic equality right,” she said.

For Johnston, the ruling is less about looking backward than preventing the same denial from happening to other women.

“What matters to me is that we move forward and we fix this so that it doesn’t happen again,” she said.

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