AT A GLANCE : An important victory for women's rights. The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that Employment Insurance provisions that penalize mothers who have received maternity or parental benefits and subsequently lose their jobs are discriminatory. After an eight-year legal battle, six workers have won their case. Labour organizations are now calling on Ottawa to respect the ruling and amend the law.
Imagine losing your job just as you return from maternity or parental leave. You've worked, paid into Employment Insurance and, like other workers, you expect to be able to rely on this safety net to get through a difficult period. But when you apply for unemployment benefits, you discover that your maternity or parental leave prevents you from receiving the regular benefits you might otherwise have been entitled to.
This is what six Quebec mothers experienced. And it is the injustice they have been fighting since 2018. On September 3, 2026, their fight reached a major milestone: the Federal Court of Appeal ruled in their favour, finding that the challenged provisions of the Employment Insurance Act violated the right to equality guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
When motherhood becomes a barrier to social protection
In Quebec, maternity and parental benefits are provided through the Québec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP). The federal Employment Insurance program, meanwhile, is intended, among other things, to provide financial support to people who lose their jobs. These two programs serve different purposes. Yet their rules can overlap in ways that are particularly disadvantageous to new mothers.
When a worker loses her job shortly before, during or after maternity or parental leave, the rules governing the calculation and duration of Employment Insurance benefits can prevent her from receiving regular benefits, even if she has worked and contributed to the program.
In other words, time spent giving birth to and caring for a child can significantly reduce the financial protection available to a woman who subsequently finds herself unemployed. For the six mothers who brought the case forward, this situation was not simply unfair. It was discriminatory.
Discrimination recognized by the Court
In its September 3 decision, the Federal Court of Appeal recognized that the challenged provisions create a distinction based on sex. Maternity benefits are available exclusively to women, who also make up the majority of parental benefit recipients. The adverse effects of Employment Insurance rules therefore disproportionately affect workers who become mothers.
The Court also emphasized that these rules help perpetuate the economic disadvantages historically associated with pregnancy and motherhood. The federal government failed to demonstrate that this infringement of the right to equality was justified. The Court noted the lack of sufficient economic evidence to establish that correcting this discrimination would jeopardize the financial sustainability of the program.
This decision represents an important victory, not only for the six women who brought their case before the courts, but also for all those who may one day find themselves in a similar situation.
A battle that has gone on for far too long
Behind this decision are years of legal proceedings, challenges and collective action. Since 2018, the six mothers have been supported in their legal battle by the Mouvement Action-Chômage de Montréal. But concerns about these provisions are nothing new. Organizations advocating for unemployed workers have been denouncing the consequences of these rules for new mothers for more than a decade.
According to the Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi (MASSE), hundreds of women are believed to be penalized each year. This reality raises a fundamental question: how can a public program designed to protect workers against job loss penalize those who have taken leave to welcome a child?
Ottawa urged to put an end to discrimination
The Court's ruling marks a major step forward, but it does not immediately put an end to the challenged rules. The Federal Court of Appeal suspended its declaration of unconstitutionality for one year to give Parliament time to amend the law. The federal government also has a limited period in which to seek leave to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Against this backdrop, MASSE, the Conseil national des chômeurs et chômeuses (CNC), and Quebec's four major labour federations—the QFL, CSD, CSN and CSQ—joined forces on October 8 to call on Mark Carney's government not to challenge the ruling.
Instead, the organizations are urging the government to accept the decision and make the necessary legislative changes to end this discrimination. After more than a decade of advocacy and several years of legal proceedings, they believe the time has come to act.
A matter of equality and solidarity
Motherhood should never become an additional source of financial insecurity for working women.
Social protections exist precisely to help people navigate difficult periods in their lives. They should reflect not only the realities of work, but also those of parenthood. This decision reminds us that inequalities between women and men are not limited to wages or opportunities for advancement. They can also be embedded in administrative rules that appear neutral but have consequences that are anything but.
For the labour movement, defending equality also means ensuring that collective protections genuinely meet the needs of the people they are intended to support.
The six mothers who fought this battle have secured a fundamental recognition: the rules that denied them unemployment protection were discriminatory. It is now up to the federal government to ensure that this legal victory translates into meaningful progress for all affected workers.