Six Canadian mothers fought for years after being denied Employment Insurance (EI) benefits when they lost their jobs during or shortly after maternity leave.
Now, the Montreal-led team has won its legal battle, as Ottawa has confirmed it won’t appeal a lower court decision that found the rules discriminatory.
The feds have until next September to change the law.
“There were six of us women who fought for thousands of women across Canada, so that’s no small feat,” said Carole Langevin, one of six mothers involved in the legal challenge.
“I’m really proud to have made my small contribution to that, and to have fought for women’s rights.”
Langevin works as a freelance camera operator. When her maternity leave ended, she had no contracts lined up. Despite having worked extensively before her leave, she was denied regular EI benefits.
“I was becoming completely dependent on my partner, and I wasn’t comfortable with that situation at all,” she told CityNews. “It was like losing a bit of your dignity and self-esteem. For instance, I had to ask my boyfriend to go buy things like my facial moisturizer for me.
“For me, it was really hard mentally to lose my independence.”
Langevin’s partner supported the family financially, but she says the experience left her thinking about mothers who had no one to fall back on.
Lawyer Sibel Ataogul represented the six women before the Federal Court of Appeal. She says the rules failed to account for time spent on maternity or paternity leave.
“But you couldn’t get an extension if you couldn’t accumulate in the last 12 months because you’d been on maternity or parental leave, even though before going on maternity or parental leave, you had actually been working,” Ataogul explained.
The Montreal advocacy group Mouvement Action Chômage has been fighting alongside these mothers since 2018. Community organizer Fanny Labelle says the problem is widespread; they get about a call a week.
“We estimate that it’s like thousands of women every year,” Labelle said.
The victory didn’t happen overnight. For eight years the group fought in court, organized demonstrations, launched petitions, and pressured federal politicians to change the law.
“It’s not only a fight in the tribunal that we did,” said Labelle. “We fought in the streets with representation and everything, and I think and I hope that we played a big role in the reason why the federal government didn’t challenge the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision.”
The federal government confirms it won’t appeal and says it will work on solutions over the coming year to better support working parents. But with hundreds of claims still pending, advocates say there’s no reason to wait.
“The court gave them a year and I’m hoping that they don’t take that year,” Ataogul said. “I hope that they do this as soon as possible. It’s really easy to correct.”
She urged women who find themselves in a similar situation to apply for EI anyway, and said that pending claims could now be reconsidered.
“Just apply. Do it. Don’t think about it. Just apply,” the lawyer said.
For Langevin, the victory was never about receiving compensation herself.
“I really did it for others, for the future,” she said. “I didn’t do it for myself.”
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