Twins = Double Mat Leave?

[flipstah]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa...of-appeal.html

Normally, under Canadian law, parents may take a total of 35 weeks of parental leave following a birth or adoption while receiving benefits under Canada's employment insurance program, no matter how many children are born to or adopted by the parents at the same time.

But Martin and Critchley had argued since parents of children born a year apart are entitled to two 35-week benefit periods, parents of twins should receive the same amount of time.

Interesting...

Parents of Beyond. Your thoughts?

[sputnik]

Parent of two kids.

Disagree completely. Mat leave is designed so that the mother (or father) can be with their kids until they get to the age of one. There is no reason why someone needs to take two years off because they have twins. Would triplet moms get three years? What about Octomom or that Gosselin hag?

Don't get me wrong. It would be a pretty sweet deal, but unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer money.

[UndrgroundRider]

Stupid...

Even parents with kids 1 year apart need to work a certain number of hours before they qualify for mat leave again. For example, my wife didn't qualify for mat leave when we had our second kid (~1.5 years apart).

The whole point of mat leave is to allow pregnant mothers to avoid strenuous work late in the pregnancy and to allow that mother to properly care and feed the infant (via breastfeeding) for the first 6 months. There's a dollars and cents explanation for mat leave, which is that the decreased strain on health care is actually cheaper than the EI payments while on mat leave.

[kvg]

If its 35 days each at the sametime

[D'z Nutz]

Sure, they can have double the mat leave.... if they take care of one baby the first year and the second one after.

But then they might argue that the two charges of child neglect and endangerment should be served concurrently haha

[jaylo]

Double dipping

[Mrbj]

lol...that's a funny argument and I disagree with double dipping.

But Alberta should bring Ontario style parental leave where BOTH parents can be on parental leave at a same time (35 weeks?) I took just a week off for each of our two.

[lint]

you can do that here. You get 35 weeks to split between the 2 parents. parental leave is federal, not provincial

[CapnCrunch]

I can't imagine how hard it would be having 2 twin babies. One at a time is enough.

If anything, they could allow both parents to take a full 35 weeks. 2-35 week mat leaves back to back for one person makes no sense.

[flipstah]

Originally posted by lint
you can do that here. You get 35 weeks to split between the 2 parents. parental leave is federal, not provincial

Yeah I thought you can share the 35 weeks.

[Xtrema]

Octo Mom = 5 years of EI?

[whiskas]

Originally posted by flipstah
Parents of Beyond. Your thoughts?

Falcon punch and try again.

[FraserB]

Are they trying to get retroactive compensation or something? Their kids are 4.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Mrbj
But Alberta should bring Ontario style parental leave where BOTH parents can be on parental leave at a same time

Originally posted by CapnCrunch
If anything, they could allow both parents to take a full 35 weeks.

I heard this on CBC radio today, and they interviewed some chick, she said this is what they're pushing for. Not back to back. They just want both parents to be able to do full mat leave at the same time for twins, triplets, etc.

edit - did some research, it's good to have a baby in Quebec haha. You get the most weeks:

http://www.babycenter.ca/a1012481/a-...parental-leave

And you get a $8k baby bonus there too haha. Oh, and subsidized daycare, $7/day. Do we pay for all that shit for Quebec???

edit2 - While we get 55% for mat leave up to $44k, Quebec gets 70% up to $64k, plus 5 weeks for men. Baller.

[EK69]

U can share the 35 weeks however u want. One parent takes it all or split any way. 35 weeks total for both parents. EI is a federal program so it's the same across Canada. If u have twins maybe extend the time period a bit so it's able to be split better between parents or just give both parents 35 weeks max...or 35 to mother (take time off before delivery) and like 15-20 for the dad (after delivery).

[natty54]

I think it would make sense if parents of multiples would be given more time. They would have 2x or more work.

They should allow both parents to take 35 weeks at the same time.

[codetrap]

.

[rage2]

Originally posted by codetrap
Having both parents home paid for 37 weeks is just another entitlement cash grab, and is going to just going to drain an already strained tax base further. Look at the US for example.. they get 6 weeks....

Is it funded by taxes? I thought it's funded by EI, which you need to contribute to for a year or something before you can draw out of it?

[codetrap]

.

[EK69]

Originally posted by rage2

Is it funded by taxes? I thought it's funded by EI, which you need to contribute to for a year or something before you can draw out of it?

You need to have worked a certain number of hours before you qualify for EI. Every pay cheque you pay into EI until you hit the yearly maximum (if you don't hit it cuz u don't make enough money it's not held against you).

Also the EI pot you draw from isn't limited to what you put in. I can work for a year and pay the max EI of $800-900 a year. Then get laid off and collect EI and get paid $447 per week before taxes (probably higher now my weekly amount is a few years old). Of course they bank on the fact that most will put in more than they will ever take out and make interest on it probably. CPP and EI and taxes are something you will never get out of paying, and technically most will put in more than they ever take out over their life time. The ppl that really get to see any benefit from it is seasonal workers lol.

Originally posted by codetrap
Mat leave is funded from EI, but I read in the news awhile ago that EI didn't have enough money to cover all the payouts, so the difference had to be made up by general revenue until the "premiums" could go up enough to balance the payouts. It's funny, because they apparently had a LOT of surplus built up over a few years, but then the gov't "appropriated it in 2007.

That was a shitty time for the govt to appropriate it lol. I haven't read anything on the matter but I imagine there was a shitload built up. Then 2007-2008 everything went down the toilet and tons went on Some form of EI. $447 a week times how many ppl = a lot of $$$