PLS HELP - having a baby while on wp / after wp expired

[Bogi]

Hi Everyone,

Me and my husband are planning on having a baby and would like to see clearly what our options are in terms of pregnancy / parental benefits. We are in a specific situation and not sure what rules apply to us. Let me describe our situation in more details.

We are both staying temporarily in Ontario on work permit (have been here for 15 months now). The WP application was under my name and my husband got a spouse WP. I'm on a fixed term contract at work that is going to end in January, 2015 (so as my WP). My employer's intention however is to make me a full-time employee (without a fixed contract) when my current contract ends. No steps have been made toward this yet (and will probably not until October / November, 2014).

My question is if I'm eligible to get pregnancy and parental benefits in the following options (if yes, for how long?):
a) if my contract ends (and not further extended) while I'm still pregnant (for example my contract ends January 30, 2015 and I give birth in March, 2015).
b) my contract ends after I give birth (for example I give birth in December, 2014 and my contract ends in January, 2015.

I know that if my work contact does not get extended, I can change my status to visitor before my WP expires. However I can stay as a visitor only for 6 months as I know. Does it mean that I would only be receiving the benefits for 6 months and had to leave the country then?

As I mentioned above there is an option that i will be employed as a full time employee for an undetermined period after January, 2015. If it happens, what is the difference in terms of the benefits? Am I correct that I would get all the benefits like a "normal" person (55% of my average insurable weekly earnings, up to a maximum amount ($514 per week) for a maximum period of 15 + 35 weeks)?

One more thing to complicate my story with . As I understand from the servicecanada.gc.ca website, someone who is eligibe for EI maternity or parental benefits can leave Canada while receiving these benefits. I would most probably like to go to my home country for the period of my maternity leave. Do you know if this has any conditions / any strings attached? Do I have to come back after the benefit paying period ends? What if I decided to stay in my country after my maternity leave ends and not coming back?

Any responses would be much appreciated.

 

[annemarie91104]

hi u can get pregnant and have a baby here.u can have parental benefits too but you cant recieve benefits after when your work permit expires. (ei and maternity and also cctb and universal benefits for your baby) to be able to collect all those benefits u must have a valid status here not a visitor.if u give birth before ur work permit expires ex. Dec its ok but ur benefits will only until the validity of ur work permit but if u give birth after your work permit expires and u have a visitors visa u need to pay when
u give birth 5-10,000$.U can collect maternity benefits outside but u need to inform service canada that your going for vacation but only if u have a valid work permit....long story short all yout benefits will depend on your work permit.

 

[Bogi]

Hi annemarie91104,
Thank you so much for your comment. It helped a lot. I have heard from some sources (even in this forum) that changing your status to a visitor is a workable solution to continue to get the benefits however their information was probably not accurate then. It seems that the best solution in this situatuion would be to try to get my work contract extended so that I will have a valid wp and will be entitled to benefits.
Thanks again!

 

[BigBee]

From my experience, if you have health card from the province, then you don't need to pay for the delivery / hospital, my wife's status was Visitor, she had the provincial health card and we were not charged for the hospital / delivery.

However, if you want to get the benefits from the govt, then you have to have a valid WP.

Good luck with planning....

 

[txboyscout]

Having read your post, I am somewhat confused on what your intention/goal is

If I were in your situation I would wait until I am offered a more perm job before trying for a baby.

You say your contract expires in Jan 2015.....Your spouse's WP is based on yours so when yours expires so does his. So if you become a visitor so does he--he cannot continue to work unless he secures his own WP or you guys are PR by then

You mention that your employer may bring on on as a regular full time employee? Now if you are pregnant, you are entitled to 1 year of maternity leave and then you can come back to work. Why would your employer hire you as a regular employee if they know you are going to go on leave in a matter of months?

Visitors in Canada are not entitled to any benefits. You are also not entitled to claim any benefits if you are not physically present in Canada

Your child will be a Canadian citizen at birth but this DOES NOT get you or your spouse any immigration benefits. So if you have to leave the country, you have to leave the country. Baby can stay behind with friends, relatives etc. but you will not be allowed to stay based on having a baby that is a citizen.

 

[txboyscout]

From my experience, if you have health card from the province, then you don't need to pay for the delivery / hospital, my wife's status was Visitor, she had the provincial health card and we were not charged for the hospital / delivery.

However, if you want to get the benefits from the govt, then you have to have a valid WP.

Good luck with planning....

She was a visitor and not entitled to OHIP at the time she gave birth? That's lucky that they did not catch on. Otherwise they might be like Alberta and send you a bill!

 

[annemarie91104]

Hi annemarie91104,
Thank you so much for your comment. It helped a lot. I have heard from some sources (even in this forum) that changing your status to a visitor is a workable solution to continue to get the benefits however their information was probably not accurate then. It seems that the best solution in this situatuion would be to try to get my work contract extended so that I will have a valid wp and will be entitled to benefits.
Thanks again!
[/quote


im a contract worker before( now have open work permit ) ei and maternity benefits ended last year. i called revenue and they said im able to collect cctb and universal if my work permit still valid.and to be able to qualify for the benifits is to file your income tax every year.in that case they will base how
much u get in cctb...

 

[Bogi]

Our intention is to have a baby as soon as possible and to get all the pregnancy / parental benefits without paying any extra to the government. If we went back to our home country to do this "project" and wanted to get any benefits, we would have to wait a really long time with having a baby (this is because of the regulations in my country). So it seems a better idea to stay here and start our family here.

Yor are right, they probably won't hire me knowing that we are planning a baby so the best timing for planning would be when I'm offered with a more permanent position. In that case my company would apply for wp extension for me however i'm a bit worried about that. When my first wp application was submitted I was offered with a 1 year position. After one year I got an extension for another year (my wp renewal is currently in process). If I were to hired permanently at the end of my current term I'm not sure how much difference it would make from the government's perspective when applying for wp extension (considering the fact that I would like to stay here permanently)? Maybe I'm welcome to stay and work here for 1 or 2 years (for short, fixed periods) but they might not like the idea of me staying here for longer and taking this job away from Canadian people. Do you think there would be a high chance that i got rejected or if I have a job in hand it's safe to say that the WP is in the bag? If I let's say got extended permanently, would I be getting a wp which does not have any time restrictions or I would just get it for one year at a time then would need to apply for extension? We are also planning on applying for PR very soon. Do you think this would have a positive impact when CIC is processing / considering my (possible future) WP extension?

Thanks everyone for the help.

 

[BigBee]

Our intention is to have a baby as soon as possible and to get all the pregnancy / parental benefits without paying any extra to the government. If we went back to our home country to do this "project" and wanted to get any benefits, we would have to wait a really long time with having a baby (this is because of the regulations in my country). So it seems a better idea to stay here and start our family here.

Yor are right, they probably won't hire me knowing that we are planning a baby so the best timing for planning would be when I'm offered with a more permanent position. In that case my company would apply for wp extension for me however i'm a bit worried about that. When my first wp application was submitted I was offered with a 1 year position. After one year I got an extension for another year (my wp renewal is currently in process). If I were to hired permanently at the end of my current term I'm not sure how much difference it would make from the government's perspective when applying for wp extension (considering the fact that I would like to stay here permanently)? Maybe I'm welcome to stay and work here for 1 or 2 years (for short, fixed periods) but they might not like the idea of me staying here for longer and taking this job away from Canadian people. Do you think there would be a high chance that i got rejected or if I have a job in hand it's safe to say that the WP is in the bag? If I let's say got extended permanently, would I be getting a wp which does not have any time restrictions or I would just get it for one year at a time then would need to apply for extension? We are also planning on applying for PR very soon. Do you think this would have a positive impact when CIC is processing / considering my (possible future) WP extension?

Thanks everyone for the help.

You probably are so confused... let me try to help you...

1. WP is ALWAYS for a fixed term, starting April 1st 2011, there is a maximum period of 4 years during which you could work on WP, after which there is a 4 year cool off period (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/backgrounders/2011/2011-03-24.asp)

2. You will ONLY get benefits if you have valid WP

3. PR is the way to go if you want to get benefits from the government, see under which category you are eligible to apply for PR and apply for it ASAP

Good luck...

 

[Bogi]

Thank you BigBee. This was very useful. It seems that PR is indeed the way to go.

 

[Bogi]

BigBee, I have a questions with respect to the regulation you were referring to.
The way I understand the 4-year period starts ticking at the time you first started working in Canada. So I assume that if in my case it's (let's say) July 2012 than the 4-year period ends in July 2016 (if I'm working the whole time with no brakes) and not in April, 2015 (I think it only applies to those who had been already working when this regulation came into effect). Can you confirm that I understand this correctly?
Also, as I've seen that there are certain exemption to this. For example if I'm an "Intra-company transferee" (which I am) it means that my Work Permit application cannot be refused based on Cumulative Duration. Is this correct? Of course i have to have a job to apply...