Maternity leave in Canada: job protection and EI are separate

Two systems, and you need both

Maternity leave in Canada is not one entitlement. Your right to take time off and have your job waiting for you comes from employment standards legislation. The money that arrives while you are off comes from Employment Insurance, a completely separate federal scheme with its own qualifying rules. Our Canada maternity pay guide handles the EI money in detail. This page is about the leave itself, and about the single most consequential question: which employment standards law applies to you.

Federally regulated is a small minority

The Canada Labour Code governs federally regulated workplaces: banks, airlines, railways, interprovincial trucking, telecommunications, broadcasting, ports, and federal Crown corporations. If you work for a hospital, a school board, a retailer, a restaurant, a factory or a provincial government, you are almost certainly not covered by it, and the numbers below in this section do not apply to you.

Under the Code, section 206 entitles an employee to a leave of absence of up to 17 weeks, beginning no earlier than 13 weeks before the estimated date of confinement and ending no later than 17 weeks after the actual date, on production of a health care practitioner's certificate confirming the pregnancy. If the child is hospitalised during the 17 weeks after the birth, that period is extended by the number of weeks of hospitalisation, capped so the whole period cannot exceed 52 weeks.

Section 206.1 then adds parental leave of up to 63 weeks for one employee, which must be taken within a 78-week period beginning on the day the child is born or comes into your care. Where two employees share it, the aggregate is 71 weeks. Section 206.2 caps the combined total: 78 weeks for one employee across maternity and parental leave, and 86 weeks aggregate where more than one employee is taking it for the same birth.

Everyone else: provincial employment standards

Most Canadian workers get their leave from a provincial or territorial employment standards act, and the thirteen of them do not agree with each other. There is no honest way to give one set of week counts that covers the country, so this page will not pretend otherwise. Look up your own province's employment standards branch and read its pregnancy leave page directly.

Ontario, as a worked example

Ontario's Employment Standards Act gives pregnancy leave of up to 17 weeks of unpaid time off. You qualify if your employer is covered by the ESA and you started employment at least 13 weeks before the due date. Ontario is explicit that you do not have to have actively worked those 13 weeks, only to have started employment before that point, so a stretch of sick leave in between does not disqualify you.

The earliest a pregnancy leave can begin is 17 weeks before the due date, and the latest is the due date itself, or the date of birth if the baby comes early. Your employer cannot pick the date for you, even if you are off sick or the pregnancy limits what work you can do.

Parental leave is separate and stacks on top. Birth mothers who take pregnancy leave get up to 61 weeks of parental leave; birth mothers who do not, and every other new parent, get up to 63 weeks. Parental leave must start within 78 weeks of the birth or of the child first coming into your care, though it does not have to finish within that window.

The notice rules in Ontario

Two weeks' written notice before starting either leave. If you stop work earlier than planned because of complications or an early birth, you have two weeks after stopping to give written notice. Four weeks' written notice to change your return date in either direction, and four weeks' written notice if you decide to resign instead of returning. Failing to give notice does not cost you the leave itself.

What Employment Insurance pays

The Employment Insurance Act sets the maximum weeks of special benefits directly. Section 12(3)(a) fixes maternity benefits because of pregnancy at 15 weeks. Parental benefits under section 12(3)(b) come in two flavours you elect between: standard at 35 weeks, or extended at 61 weeks. Where parents divide the weeks between them, section 12(4)(b) raises the ceilings to 40 weeks standard and 69 weeks extended.

Notice the mismatch. Ontario gives 17 weeks of pregnancy leave; EI pays 15 weeks of maternity benefits. The last two weeks of leave are unpaid unless parental benefits have started. Ontario's own guidance warns about exactly this kind of gap and tells employees to get EI information before deciding how long to take.

What you keep while you are off in Ontario

Ontario protects more than the job title. Employees on pregnancy or parental leave keep the right to continue participating in pension, life insurance, accidental death, extended health and dental plans, and the employer must keep paying its share of the premiums unless you tell them in writing that you are stopping your own share. You continue to earn credit toward length of employment, length of service and seniority throughout the leave, and a probationary period is paused rather than run down while you are away.

Reinstatement is to the same job, or a comparable job if the old one no longer exists, at no less than your previous pay, plus any increase that happened or would have happened while you were away.

Quebec is a different system

Quebec residents claim through the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan rather than EI, with its own benefit types, durations and rates. If you live in Quebec, do not apply the EI week counts above; go to the QPIP directly.

What to do, and in what order

Establish first whether your employer is federally or provincially regulated, because everything else follows from it. Get the pregnancy certificate your employment standards law requires. Give written notice on your province's timetable. Then, separately and in good time, decide between standard and extended parental benefits, because that election is difficult to reverse once benefits begin.