The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of a group of six Quebec women in a case that could help thousands of women denied employment benefits.
The women challenged the fact that they were denied employment insurance (EI) benefits when they lost their jobs shortly before, during or after maternity leave. The case was first brought forward in 2018.
In a decision released Thursday, the three-judge panel said withholding EI benefits from these women was a violation of Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
That provision guarantees everyone equality under the law and equal benefit of the law, without discrimination.
“One of the grounds listed in section 15 is sex, and it is well-established that discrimination based on pregnancy and motherhood is sex-based discrimination,” the judges wrote.
Some of the women were denied benefits because they didn’t have enough insurable work hours, or had already reached the 50-week benefit limit.
“You need to have accumulated a certain amount of hours in the last year, but you won’t be able to accumulate those hours if you’re on mat leave,” Sibel Ataogul, the lead attorney for the applicants, explained.
She said the law allows for an extension for people detained in prison, but no similar extension currently exists for women on parental leave.
“On a more human level, it’s mind-boggling to me that this would still be an issue,” Ataogul said. “It’s really a perpetuation of decades and decades of sexism.”
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The court found that limiting the ability to stack EI benefits with maternal or parental benefits disproportionately affected women. This is because women are the only ones who can accumulate maternity benefits, and make up a large proportion of parental benefit claims.
“For on average nine years after you’ve had your child, you’re still suffering from the disadvantage in comparison to men who have children,” Ataogul said. “So it was just a no-brainer to say, by denying women this benefit that they have the right to get because they were actually doing the labor of being at home, you’re perpetuating their disadvantageous position in society.”
The women, represented by the advocacy group Mouvement Action Chômage, first won their case at the General Division of the Social Security Tribunal which ruled that excluding women from EI benefits during or following a mat leave resulted in gender-based discrimination.
That decision was contested by the Employment Insurance Commission and reversed by the Court of Appeal.
The women went back to court in November 2025, at the Federal Court of Appeal, before receiving the news of their victory Wednesday.
The judges struck down the discriminatory parts of the EI Act but suspended the declaration for one year.
That means the federal government has 12 months to rewrite the law.
“We’re hoping that the Liberals will let this decision stand and not bring us to the Supreme Court and challenge a basic equality right,” Ataogul said.
Celia Johnston, a mom in the Montreal area, said hearing the news was validating.
“It’s very validating for them to have recognized that it is discriminatory,” she told Global News. “And I think that this can only bring forward some positive change and help address that gap.”
Johnston was not a plaintiff in the case but she was also denied EI benefits when her job position dissolved while she was on mat leave in October 2025.
“It was never very clear where my case sat,” she said. “I felt very alone and frustrated because I truly didn’t understand what was happening.”
Johnston said she wasn’t aware of how many women had been impacted until it happened to her. Since she’s spoken to many women in the same situation.
“They had shared with me that they were nervous and afraid to get pregnant again and to be put in this situation again. So I think knowing that this could be resolved, it removes that fear and that additional stressor that this could happen again,” she said. “Nobody plans to have this happen to them, but to know that it could is scary.”
Johnston said she is in a better financial place now and would not expect any retroactive benefits, but continues to share her story to protect other women.
“For me, all I ever wanted was for this to change,” she said.
– With files from Elizabeth Zogalis, Global News
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