In relation to the maternity leave component, two issues have recently come up—at least in my riding, and I suspect I'm not alone—regarding the change through this legislation of allowing up to 12 weeks for maternity leave prior to giving birth. However, some of the concerns we hear about are around the eligibility. I'm assuming that those other conditions have not changed, or have not loosened. I'll give my two specific examples.
A resident who is pregnant goes on maternity leave. When she is set to return to work, she's laid off, but because she's been off on maternity leave, she hasn't had her 52 weeks prior to being laid off. Therefore, she's ineligible for EI, yet her male colleagues who were also laid off are eligible.
The other situation is where a person was pregnant, took her maternity leave, returned to work, quickly got pregnant again, and was shy by a few hours of being able to qualify once again. No accommodation could be made with her employer to make up those hours in order to be eligible.
Does anything in this act start to address these flexibility issues around benefits when someone is either on or off maternity leave and these types of situations need to kick in, for example someone being laid off or needing to access maternity leave benefits once again?