NDP vow to settle lawsuit with sick moms if elected

NDP would settle lawsuit with moms who say they were wrongfully denied EI sickness benefits while on maternity leave.

Thestar.com
Oct. 8, 2015
By Laurie Monsebraaten

Both a Liberal and NDP government would settle a $450-million class action lawsuit by mothers who say they were wrongfully denied EI sickness benefits while on maternity or parental leave.

“The NDP believes that Canadians who have been denied benefits they paid for should not be forced into lengthy, expensive court battles with the government in order to obtain justice,” said Dartmouth-Cole Harbour NDP candidate Robert Chisholm.

“That’s why an NDP government will end the court battle and make it a priority to meet with these women in the hopes of negotiating a fair settlement,” Chisholm said in a statement Wednesday.

On Thursday evening, Liberal party spokesman Jean-Luc Ferland said a Liberal government would also “immediately end” the court battle.

This week’s announcement by the NDP was “a pleasant surprise” for Calgary mother Jennifer McCrea, one of thousands of women who were denied EI sickness benefits from 2002 until 2013 when the federal government clarified the law with new legislation.

“It made me feel a little bit more validated,” she told the Star Thursday.

The Conservatives this week matched the Liberals’ earlier promise to extend maternity and parental leave benefits to 18 months from the current one-year program. But Thursday they refused to say if they would settle the class action lawsuit for mothers who became seriously ill while on maternity or parental leave but were denied additional EI sickness benefits of up to 15 weeks.

The issue was first brought to light in 2011 by Toronto cancer survivor Natalya Rougas, whose successful claim for EI sickness benefits was profiled in the Star. The Conservative government subsequently changed the law and quietly paid several hundred women whose appeals were already in progress.

But more than 3,000 other sick mothers who didn’t appeal should also have been paid, said lawyer Stephen Moreau who launched the class action on behalf of McCrea in 2012. The class action was certified last May.