Discussions

Was just wondering if a person can go on ei before mat leave. This pregnancy is taking a toll on me this round..

Sounds likes a question you will get a better answer for if you call ei..... 1800-206-7218

If your doctor will state that you must be off early for medical reasons then you can go on medical EI early which will switch to maternity EI at your due date or when the baby is born.

Your doctor can put you on medical leave if there is a reason to be on it before your maternity leave. You can also start your maternity leave early before baby, but then you will have to go back earlier.

You can go on mat leave as early as 34 weeks, but you can take off sooner with "sick" leave, which is doctor approved. If that doesn't work, you'll just have to tough it out until then. Sorry

I took sick leave at 28 weeks. You can take up to 15 weeks of sick leave before you start your maternity leave and it won't cut into your mat/pat leave time either. You just call and let them know when you have your baby and they switch it over to maternity leave!  
You do need a doctor's note for the sick leave.

Do u pay into short term disability? If so your doctor could write you off sick and your insurance company would pay your full wages until your mat leave starts.

Hopefully you have a nice employer. When I wanted to take my mat leave a little earlier than originally planned, they told me unless a doctor was gonna write up a sick note for me, I was required to be at work. So I highly recommend going through your doctor so you don't have to deal with any headaches from your employer.

You may have a hard time if you try to get written off as sick before your mat leave, I tried to do that at 34 weeks and my doctor told me EI keeps rejecting it due to pregnancy not counting as an illness. They might just make it regular maternity, which means you’ll have to go back earlier

What's the point in being entitled to up to 15 weeks of maternity leave if your employers won't agree to it and give you an roe. My employer wouldn't issue me an roe until 10 days before I had my baby. Yeah I'm sure I could have gone to my doctor seeing as how I was dealing with pregnancy induced hypertension, or talked to the labour board but I decided to tough it out. The sad thing is, all I wanted was to start my mat leave at 36 weeks not 38/39 mark

if you have an actual accepted complication to pregnancy then yes you can get sick up to 15 weeks sick leave before mat leave but as soon as you are eligible for mat leave (12 weeks before due date) you are switched over and start your 15 weeks of mat leave, after that you or babys dad can take parental leave heres the link  
 
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-parental.html  
 
you can claim up to 15 weeks of sickness benefits before your mat leave but you do need a medical certificate (drs note) and you must meet all the other criteria  
 
https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/ei/ei-list/reports/sickness.html#h2.2-h3.2

~BooBoo~ said "What's the point in being entitled to up to 15 weeks of maternity leave if your employers won't agree to it and give you an roe. My employer wouldn't issue me an roe until 10 days before I had my baby. Yeah I'm sure I could have gone to my doctor seeing as how I was dealing with pregnancy induced hypertension, or talked to the labour board but I decided to tough it out. The sad thing is, all I wanted was to start my mat leave at 36 weeks not 38/39 mark "

your employer can not hold your ROE  
 
I had one try because I was casual so they felt like since I didnt fully want to quit i wasnt laid off I didnt get an ROE  
 
I needed EI since my full time job was ending,I wasnt sure how close to hours I had so when I was applying for EI declared that employer and notified EI that they refused to give me an ROE. EI rep phoned them and clarified that they in fact did need to issue me one and how to go about it since I was still casual and would accept work(I was on ei after all lol) anyway they issued me one through EI and with the 200 casual hours I had just enough Hours to qualify, my claim did take a bit longer to start because of the paperwork issue tho  
 
long story short if you have to just tell your employer your last day and file EI will get the info they need

They weren't "holding" my roe. We had agreed on a day that would be my last to work. My situation changed 2-3 weeks prior to that date. I asked if I could start my mat leave early so I could take it easy for the remainder of my pregnancy since I was dealing with PIH and being watched to make sure I didn't develop preeclampsia. I went for multiple stress tests and everything at the hospital. My employer didn't like that fact I wanted to start my mat leave sooner. Told me straight up if I was just wanting to start it sooner on my own accord that I could stay and work my last 3 weeks. They said the only way they would agree to let me leave early was if my doctor wrote a note saying I couldn't work for whatever reasons. Again I could have asked my doctor for a note but at what cost? I didn't feel like I needed the extra stress of butting heads with my boss over it.  
 
If they would have issued my ROE so I could apply for mat leave sooner, it only would have been about 5 weeks of mat leave used out of the 15 you can be entitled to. Instead I was off work for 10 days before my baby was born.

The only reason I am sharing my story is so the OP can be prepared. Not all employers are as nice when it comes to wanting to let their staff go on mat leave whenever they want too.

I get that employers dont always make it easy but if you dont want to stand up for yourself then i guess your only choice is to accept it  
 
I get why you shared your story but while they can be prepared for an employer saying no and pushing back, knowing the facts of how its supposed to go, what to do about, what will happen ect, helps people be prepared to set their employer up to follow the correct path or what steps to follow if they still dont, I guess some get stressed about that but knowing the facts will help you decide what to accept  
 
ps by the sounds of your story you could have easily gone on leave with a doctors note, (not sure the cost you talk about, would it be employer mad at you?), I suspect the employer had planed for help based on the date you set and felt stuck but with pregnancy that is really short sighted, babys can easily come 2 weeks early or preeclampsia ect like you had, as an employer i get that staffing can be hard but things happen, people come and go, to bad the employer did that to you