Celia Johnston was finishing up maternity leave and just a week away from returning to work when she got the news she’d been laid off. “I was excited to go back to work,” Johnston said. “I’ve worked hard for my career. I enjoyed my job, so I was looking forward to going back to work, seeing my colleagues.” She immediately filed a claim for employment insurance (EI), but couldn’t believe what she was told. “It took them two full months to get back to me to let me know that my case was declined,” Johnston said. She was told that while on maternity leave, she hadn’t accumulated enough insurable hours. “That’s what employment insurance bases their claims off of. So you need to have at least 600 insurable hours and because I didn’t work that year, I did not make any,” she said. “It’s something that you pay in for your whole career and then when you need it, it’s not there. It’s incredibly frustrating.” Her situation is not unique. Human resources specialist Annie Boilard says she hears of an increasing number of cases just like Johnston’s. “For maternity leave, there is something in there that tells us it’s kind of unfair because it’s related to the amount of weeks that the person has not worked,” Boilard said. “That’s why they are not eligible at the end of the of the maternity leave. It feels like there is something that is unfair.” Calls to overhaul system There have been a lot of calls to have employment insurance overhauled. A little more than a year ago, CTV Montreal told the story of a woman who was laid off after returning from maternity leave. She, too, was denied EI. In a statement, the government department responsible for EI writes: “The government of Canada is working on improving EI to better reflect realities of the modern workforce [and] is focused on building an EI program that is responsive to the needs of workers and employers and financially sustainable,” it said. “Even though the person did not work the insured hours, it’s not because the person didn’t want to work. It’s really because the person was not available for work,” Boilard said. “To me, it feels like we can do an exception.” For Johnston, it’s pressure not only to find a new job but to accept a role quickly. “When you’re on maternity leave, your income is already docked,” Johnston said. “To go from having your income halved to having absolutely no income, it definitely puts a lot of pressure on the job search.”
