Maternity Leave is Less Valued Than Prison In Canada

...when it comes to Employment Insurance benefits. This story comes via Cyberpresse and surrounds the struggles of Montrealer Norah Krahl whom, a month after returning from maternity leave, found out that the company she worked for was moving its office to Boston.

As a newly unemployed worker, she applied for Employment Insurance.

She wasn't entitled to it, they told her.

Diane Finley tries to overtake
her husband Doug for title of
"Most Contemptuous of Canadians"
in the Finley household.

In Canada, you must have worked a certain number of hours during the past year to qualify for benefits. The government does not consider parental benefits as employment income, even for those who retain their jobs only to return after the break.

There are exceptions for the sick, those in reassignment, the beneficiaries of employability measures and prisoners.

But mothers returning to their jobs? Forget that! Had she committed a crime and sentenced to prison for one year, had her baby in jail, reintegrated society and applied for employment insurance, she would have gotten it.

Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a rant on prisoners and the need to be "tough on crime" that nets zero results. I've argued for a rehabilitative approach for prisoners previously but this strikes me as a deficiency in the system whereby working mothers returning from maternity leave are being treated rather shabbily by any stretch of the imagination.

This hasn't gone unnoticed by the NDP as it already had plans to submit a bill to correct such a glaring omission when Parliament restarts. Yvon Godin explains "A person who has a job and goes on maternity leave, it is clear that his goal is not to seek new employment. When, to her surprise, her employer removes her job, it's pretty cruel that this person is not entitled to benefits. We want the maternity leave to have no impact on benefit payments."

Such legislation would seem rather sensible to everyone.

Well, everyone except the Conservative Party of Canada...

Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, had no comment on the original La Presse story when contacted by the reporter, Vincent Larouche.

Say it with me: a strong, stable Conservative majority. Now shudder.