McCrea, 42, developed breast cancer in 2011 while on maternity leave with her youngest son, Logan, but was denied additional EI sickness benefits. It meant new mothers, such as McCrea, could take up to 15 weeks of sickness benefits to recuperate and then resume their parental benefits. But EI officials didn’t interpret the changes that way; they argued that since an ill woman on parental leave wasn’t available for work, she wasn’t eligible for EI sickness benefits. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government eventually changed the law in 2013 to ensure new mothers with serious illnesses are not denied EI sickness benefits. But it refused to pay McCrea and others who were denied sickness benefits between 2002 and 2013.

Source: thestar January 30, 2019 22:14 UTC