Canada Maternity Benefits

Canada Maternity benefit laws are parent friendly laws which allow the parents to spend more time with their babies as well as with their adopted babies.

What are the Canada Maternity Benefits Available to people?

Canada maternity benefits have more parent friendly laws as compared to United States federal laws as the Canadian maternity law not only has a law in favor of maternity leave but also helps them to seek compensation. Depending upon your place of residence the laws has given the employer the right to sanction a minimum of 17 weeks of leave to even 52 weeks of maternity leave without the fear of losing your job. The law further helps you to regain your old position in your work place ones you resume your work or in case the post is not available you are given a position as per your previous holding along with all the said benefits. The law further helps you by allowing you to get almost 55% of the pay taking into consideration that the pay amount does not exceed 413$ per week and this financial pay benefit is available for about 3-4 months. If you are able to put in some work a few hours of work daily even while on leave you can get the benefits of the pay pack.

What is the eligibility criterion?

To be eligible for these benefits you need to have qualified for certain criteria like you must have at least 600 hours of working if you want a leave of fifty two weeks along with other benefits that come with parental or maternity leave.

How to go about applying for the leave?

You need to take care of the following details when you go about applying for maternity leave:

You need to put in your maternity leave application at least one month prior to the date of leave.

You also need to specify the time period of leave requirement.

Doctor's certificate to confirm about your impending pregnancy

You also need to attach the required documents and submit it to the Human Resources Development of Canada and this application form can be submitted online too.

Ways to replace the loss of income while you’re on maternity leave:

The benefits of maternity leave are many but then they bring a dent in your pocket as the pay pack is greatly reduced and this causes a lot of financial constraint on your family but then there are ways by which you can over come some of these constraints like:

You could always check out ways of utilizing your sick leave, personal leaves and annual leaves to compensate with your pregnancy leave in other words these leaves can be converted for your paid leave during your pregnancy and childbirth period.

You can also get a short-term disability insurance coverage from your paid salary in case you are not in the position to work due to various health reasons. This short-term insurance coverage policy can be taken privately.