Pregnancy and Parental Leave for Postdoctoral Fellows at Carleton University

Note: this information is NOT mentioned/covered in the Collective Agreement.

Pregnancy and/or parental leaves for Carleton postdocs are unpaid. You can apply for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits via federal government (check Government of Canada website for details).

Leave types are pregnancy (for birth mothers) and/or parental leave (for both partners).

However, as a postdoctoral fellow at Carleton you have the option to pause your contract while you go on leave. This way you can make sure you do not miss on your research contract time.

Steps you need to follow to pause your contract as a prospective/new mother or father:

1) Discuss the leave dates with your supervisor (make sure you inform your supervisor well in advance in case arrangements need to be made, etc.).

2) Get your supervisor’s approval.

3) For MITACS postdocs: if you have an industrial partner (e.g., Mitacs Accelerate Award fellows), get their approval re: leave dates.

4) Contact the postdoctoral fellow coordinator at Carleton University (currently Bana Al Tahir). Inform them of the leave, leave dates so they can prepare an adjusted contract that will resume after you return from leave for the remaining period of the contract. For example, you have 6 months remaining on your contract and you want to take leave on March 1, 2021 for one year. They can pause the contract on March 1, 2021 and prepare an adjusted contract that resumes from March 2022 to August 2022. 

For MITACS postdocs: contact Mitacs (Deirdre Sequeira, dsequeira@mitacs.ca). Inform them of the intent to go on a leave and the dates. They will provide you with an appropriate form to fill. The form needs to be signed by your project supervisor.

5) Finally, fill out and submit the pregnancy/parental leave form from HR (Elena Maksimova, ElenaMaksimova@cunet.carleton.ca) at Carleton.

P.S. For postdoctoral fellows who have insurance through Carleton: insurance is not covered during the leave. You can opt in/out depending on your preference. If you decide to opt in during your leave, a value (depends on the insurance plan) will be payable/deducted from your bank account. The money will be taken from your bank account on each pay day. Make sure you inform HR of your decision (opt out/in). They will prepare the required form for you to fill out and submit (in addition to the leave form).