Today the federal government announced that as of December 3, 2017, eligible pregnant workers will be able to receive employment insurance maternity benefits up to 12 weeks before their due date, and that parents can choose to receive parental benefits over a period of 12 months at the current benefit rate or up to 18 months at a lower benefit rate.

For a discussion of how these changes to employment insurance benefits may impact your workplace, please see our April 24, 2017 blog post “Federal Budget 2017: How to plan for changes to parental employment insurance benefits.”