Mr. Chair, I am happy to take that question.
Let me give you three categories of expectant mothers to give you the cases and how we are dealing with them.
The first category would be expectant mothers who have not been let go from their jobs but are going onto the EI special benefit, maternity benefit, during either the pre-March 16 period or after, during the CERB period. That is the part of the EI system that we have continued to have function after March 16, so whether they went on maternity benefits prior to March 16 or after, they will be receiving the benefits through EI maternity. That's 55% of their income, based on their qualifications.
For women who were laid off prior to their going on maternity leave, as a normal function of our EI system, they go on regular benefits first under the EI system and they then are switched over to maternity leave. In both of those cases, they are on EI benefits, so it's 55% of their salary. Any woman you described who is in a situation where she would have been laid off prior to March 15 would be on EI regular benefits, and then she would proceed to EI maternity benefits.
For women who were laid off after March 16, indeed our intention is to put them on the CERB for that period and then transition them to EI. Our system was not built to be able to do this, so the teams have been working very hard to allow that to happen in an automatic way. They have found a solution to be able to do that, but in the interim period, in order to avoid women being without benefits, we put them on EI, even the women who applied after March 16, so that they would be put in pay and getting benefits. For some of those women, that would mean they would be earning more than the CERB, because in EI you can earn up to $573. For some, it would mean less than the CERB.
As soon as we are able to implement this solution to the system, the 46-year-old EI system that we have, we will be doing two things. Everyone who will be enrolled in EI, who is in the situation you described, will automatically go into the CERB and then automatically be transitioned to the EI benefit. For anyone who has been in the EI system from March 16 until now, we will go back and retroactively top up their pay if they were below $500.