Employment Insurance Changes Pending Under 2017 Canadian Federal Budget

Last month, Canada's federal government released its 2017 budget. The federal government touted the budget as being particularly family-oriented and as promoting gender equality and women's participation in the workplace.

Among the dozens of announced measures in the budget were a few items affecting Employment Insurance (EI) benefits. The items are of particular interest to employers that stand to be impacted by the following changes, which are expected to be in place by 2018:

1. Expectant mothers can begin to take EI maternity benefits for up to 12 weeks before their due dates, instead of the current 8 weeks.
2. Parents will be able to claim EI benefits for up to 18 months instead of the current 12 months; however, the total amount of benefits received will be the same (with 12 months' benefits equal to 55 percent of EI insurable earnings being extendable to 18 months' benefits at 33 percent of EI insurable earnings).