Paternity and partner leave in Canada: what the other parent gets

The thing nobody tells new fathers and partners

Outside Quebec, Canada does not have a paternity benefit. There is no equivalent of Britain's paternity pay or Quebec's reserved weeks. What exists instead is a single pool of Employment Insurance parental benefits that both parents draw from, and if you want any of it, you have to take it out of the pool the other parent would otherwise use.

This is the single most common misunderstanding in Canadian parental leave, and it changes how couples should plan.

How the shared pool works

The Employment Insurance Act sets two options, and the choice is locked once benefits start.

Standard parental benefits

One claimant can take up to 35 weeks. If the weeks are divided between two claimants, the family maximum rises to 40 weeks. That five-week difference is the closest thing federal Canada has to a use-it-or-lose-it incentive for the second parent: if only one of you claims, those five weeks simply do not exist.

Extended parental benefits

One claimant can take up to 61 weeks. Divided between two claimants, the family maximum is 69 weeks, an eight-week gain.

What the weeks are worth

Section 14 of the Act sets the rate of weekly benefits at 55% of weekly insurable earnings, dropping to 33% for weeks of extended parental benefits. Extended is not more money spread thinner in the sense of paying the same total; it is a genuinely lower total, taken over a longer stretch. Both rates are capped by a maximum weekly insurable earnings figure that changes each January.

Maternity benefits are separate again, are not part of this pool, and can only be claimed by the person who gives birth.

The choice you cannot undo

Standard and extended are not a preference you can revise later. The election is made when the first claimant starts receiving parental benefits, and it binds both parents. If the birth parent elects extended and returns to work early, the second parent cannot switch the remaining weeks back to the 55% standard rate. Couples should therefore decide together, before the first claim is filed, rather than treating it as one parent's paperwork.

The arithmetic that catches people out is that extended weeks are converted, not simply counted. Where extended parental benefits have been paid, the Act converts those weeks into the number of weeks that would have been paid at 55% when working out whether the overall benefit maximum has been reached. Extended parental leave buys time at home, not more money, and the total you receive across the two options is broadly the same.

Quebec runs a completely different plan

If you are a Quebec resident, none of the above applies to you. The Quebec Parental Insurance Plan replaces EI maternity and parental benefits entirely, and it does have dedicated paternity benefits reserved for the parent who did not give birth.

Under the basic plan the other parent gets 5 weeks of paternity benefits at 70% of average weekly income. Maternity benefits run 18 weeks at 70%, and there are 32 shareable parental weeks — 7 at 70%, then 25 at 55% — plus 4 further shareable weeks at 55% once at least 8 weeks have been paid to each parent.

Under the special plan, which is shorter and pays a higher percentage, paternity benefits are 3 weeks at 75%, maternity is 15 weeks at 75%, and there are 25 shareable parental weeks at 75%, with 3 further shareable weeks at 75% once 6 weeks have been paid to each parent.

The paternity weeks are not transferable. If the other parent does not take them, the family loses them. Benefits are calculated against maximum insurable earnings of $103,000 for 2026, up from $98,000 in 2025, adjusted every 1 January.

The leave underneath the money

Benefits and job protection are two different systems, and qualifying for one does not qualify you for the other. Leave is set by whichever employment standards law covers your employer.

If your employer is federally regulated — banking, telecoms, interprovincial transport, federal Crown corporations — the Canada Labour Code gives every employee up to 63 weeks of parental leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child. The leave can only be taken inside the 78-week period beginning on the day the child is born or comes into your care, and where more than one employee takes leave for the same birth, the aggregate cannot exceed 71 weeks.

In Ontario, which is provincially regulated and covers most workers there, all new parents have the right to parental leave: 61 weeks for a birth parent who also took pregnancy leave, and 63 weeks for everyone else, including the other parent. A father can begin parental leave up to 78 weeks after the birth. All of it is unpaid.

That last point is the trap. Ontario law lets you start leave 78 weeks after the birth; EI will not necessarily pay you at that point. Check the benefit window before you book the leave, not after.

Where to get help

For EI parental benefits, Service Canada administers claims and can confirm your weeks and rate. Quebec residents deal with the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan through Revenu Quebec and the plan's own service centre. For job-protected leave, contact the federal Labour Program if your employer is federally regulated, or your provincial ministry of labour if not.