Today I am highlighting two more blog posts for the Carnival of Maternity Leave. I feel that they provide a handy sort of compare and contrast in terms of the best and worst of maternity and parental leave in Canada.
First up we have Brie, who provides us with the ‘best’ part of our little comparison. She works for the Canadian government, which has quite probably the most family-friendly workplace policies in the country. Like every other employee in Canada government workers receive 50 weeks of combined maternity and parental leave. But they also get a whole lot more, as Brie outlines in Maternity leave: time and money. Here is an excerpt:
As an employee of the Government of Canada I receive an additional weekly allowance to augment the $447 to 93% of my weekly income. What this means is that I am being paid close to my full salary for almost a year to stay at home and care for my baby.
In addition, the Government of Canada provides its employees with up to five years of unpaid leave for the care and nurturing of pre-school age children.
Most employers in Canada don’t offer a top-up, and those that do rarely offer it for the full maternity leave. The benefits received by government employees make even other Canadians jealous.
Next up we have Lara, who provides the ‘worst’ part of our comparison. Lara quit her job to expand her own business, and became pregnant shortly thereafter. The surprise came when she discovered she was expecting twins. Because she’d left her job she isn’t eligible for maternity benefits through employment insurance (EI), which means her maternity leave would be unpaid. Her post Not so perfect timing details her struggles to try to cobble together enough insurable hours to collect some sort of pay during her leave. Here is an excerpt:
… I was in a bit of a pickle. I had just quit my permanent job that not only would have provided me the eligibility for maternity leave EI, but a 5 month top up.
Do you know what you get for maternity leave as a business owner? Even if the business has yet to become profitable? Nothing, nada, RIEN!
As I discussed in Maternity Leave and the Self-Employed the government may be taking steps so that self-employed parents are eligible for maternity and parental leave. Right now only parents in Quebec can receive maternity and parental benefits if they are self-employed, and there is talk of expanding their model to cover the rest of the country through the EI system. I am certainly rooting for it!
Even in a country like Canada that offers really good maternity leave there is still a broad spectrum of experience ranging from the fabulous to the horrible and everything in between. While our family policies serve most Canadians reasonably well, there is always room for improvement, as Lara and Brie’s stories show. I wish that every parent in Canada was eligible for the sorts of benefits paid to our federal employees.
PS – If you have a contribution you’d like to include in the carnival you can email me the link at amber [at] strocel [dot] com any time before August 10. Or you can send me your story and I’ll post it here. The more the merrier, please join in!
wow, it is so great to hear these stories. Things have come a long way I believe. When I had my kids (mid 1970's), it never even occurred to me to take mat leave – I just quit my job. Can anyone tell us what mat leave was like "back then"? Or how much of it there was?
I actually wrote a post about the history of maternity leave in Canada, which you can find here: http://www.strocel.com/history-of-maternity-leave-in-canada/Basically, if you had at least 20 weeks at your job you could take 15 weeks of leave through EI starting in 1971. However, I'm not sure how many women took it. I know my own mother quit, too, when I was born.
How about this: I had to stop teaching as soon as my pregnancy showed! That was in the late 60's and, yes, I quit my job,too.(I also got into trouble with the Principal of my school when I talked about the coming baby and let a 10-year old girl touch my tummy.)Yes, we've come a long way, thank goodness.
Wow to Lara! Checked out both the blogs and I just wanted to say that I’m really glad you are doing this. I think it’s great!
I feel like I’m writing from a third world country sometimes, when I realize that I’m surprised to read about someone who would *expect* to get a long and paid maternity leave! We have a long way to go down here.