The Issue with Proposed 18-month maternity leave

Compared to America, Canada’s maternity leave is way better; the neighbors to the south get 12 weeks at best while Canada has 18 months! You’d think that would make mothers in the country happier but not so. Upon closer examination, we see there is a problem. As of now, parents that are eligible in the country for leave can get up to 35 weeks off plus, an additional 15 weeks for mothers. With this, comes 55% of the income to a maximum amount of $51,300.

This number goes up a little bit every year.

With the new 18-month maternity, you will only see 33% of your income over the course of the year-and-a-half instead of this of the first 12 months.

Here in lies the problem “created” by Prime Minister Trudeau.

According Mr. Trudeau, this new extended leave will help parents get a handle on the expensive childcare which is also difficult to find.

So if parents stay at home with their babies until they are 18 months old, a lot of money will be saved.
Mothers living in Toronto for example, might find this extended leave to be a good thing seeing that the city has the highest daycare costs in the entire country. In a year, a parent can spend up to or even more CAD$30,000, followed by Vancouver then Ottawa.

The 18-month parental leave as part of the new budget will have to approved by the House of Commons but no changes will come till 2018 so plenty of time to plan for the “worst”: it being approved.

It seems that mothers will be presented with two choices: the 12-month or the 18-month leave upon the birth of child(ren). But it seems in the long run, the 18-month leave has more benefits.

Bare in mind that upon making your choice of the 12-month leave, there will be no take backs!

If we are talking money, going on a 12-month leave is a lot better than the 18-month one but the decision is left up to you and your partner. There is also a risk that your job might be at risk if you stay at home for a year-and-a-half.

As mentioned earlier, Prime Minister Trudeau wants parents to stay at home to take care of their young in order to cut costs on daycare but that just seems lazy of the government as it passes the problem onto the parents instead of tackling the problem, head on.
A childcare advocacy group in the province of British Columbia is looking to create a CAD$10/day daycare plan. This is to emulate the eastern province of Quebec that put a handle on its daycare 12 years ago by making daycare affordable.

According to advocates, subsidized daycare—like the one in Quebec—basically pays for itself thereby aiding mothers go back to work early.