On November 25, 2022, the federal government announced that the Employment Insurance sickness benefit is being extended from 15 weeks to 26 weeks effective December 18, 2022. This change is due to amendments to the Employment Insurance Act that were enacted on June 29, 2021, through the Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, (introduced as Bill C-30) but was waiting for proclamation to come into force.
The extended Employment Insurance sickness benefits will be effective for any applications starting on December 18, 2022.
The move to extend Employment Insurance sickness benefits is an important step to recognize that many employees are becoming ill or injured and are not provided with the income support they need, for long enough periods of time.
The move also helps bridge the gap for employees who have access to long-term disability benefits but not short-term disability benefits. Most long-term disability benefits policies have lengthy eligibility wait times that often reach between four and six months. Those who do not have short-term disability benefits to rely upon during that eligibility period will be able to access Employment Insurance sickness benefits during that period of time.
The exact amount an employee on leave for medical reasons can receive will be determined once his or her application is processed.
The employee could receive 55 percent of his or her insurable earnings up to a maximum of $638 a week (2022). The number of weeks of benefits he or she gets depends on the amount the employee receives depending on the insurable earnings before taxes in the past 52 weeks or since the start of his or her last claim, whichever is shorter.
Insurable earnings include most of the different types of compensation from employment, such as wages, tips, bonuses and commissions. The Canada Revenue Agency determines what types of earnings are insurable.
Employees need to demonstrate that:
- They are unable to work for medical reasons
- Their regular weekly earnings from work have decreased by more than 40 percent for at least one week
- They have accumulated 600 insured hours of work in the 52 weeks before the start of their claim or since the start of their last claim, whichever is shorter
While the employee is receiving sickness benefits, he or she must remain otherwise available for work, if it weren’t for his or her medical condition.
To align with the changes, the federal government has also made changes to unpaid medical leave under Part III (Labour Standards) of the Canada Labour Code, which was enacted on June 29, 2021, through the Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, (introduced as Bill C-30) and comes into force on December 18, 2022.
As a result, effective December 18, 2022, a federally regulated employee, is entitled to medical leave protection of up to:
- 27 (previously 17) weeks for:
- illness or injury
- organ or tissue donation, or
- attending medical appointments
- 27 (previously 16) weeks:
- because of having to quarantine
If a medical leave of absence is three days or longer, the employer may require that the employee provides a certificate issued by a healthcare practitioner. If requested, the employee must provide one, in writing, within 15 days of his or her return to work. This certificate must certify that the employee was unable to work for the time he or she was absent from work.
On the employee’s return to work, the employer may reassign the employee to another position if he or she is unable to perform any of his or her previous job functions.
The federal government has stated that it strongly recommends that provincial and territorial governments extend their unpaid sick or illness and injury leave under employment/labour standards legislation to align with changes to the EI sickness benefits.
Also, the above changes to unpaid medical leave are in addition to upcoming paid medical leave for federally regulated. Effective December 1, 2022, the Canada Labour Code provides employees with a maximum of 10 days of medical leave of absence with pay per calendar year.
Looking to update your federally regulated medical leave policy to reflect the December 1 and December 18 changes, take a free trial of the federally regulated Human Resources database in PolicyPro.
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