Mom stunned after maternity leave benefits cut by 50% due to CERB

For the last three weeks, Lindsey Northrup has been receiving half of her parental leave benefits, which were already about half of what she makes when she's working.

"Some of my bills didn't get paid — they're going to be late," Northrup said. "It's frustrating and not my fault."

Northrup lives in Bloomfield, N.B., with her husband and eight-month-old son. She went on maternity leave from her job as a dental hygienist at the end of last summer.

She received a letter in March informing her she had a $2,000 debt outstanding from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).

Northrup said she didn't expect to have to repay the benefit — shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, she was laid off due to a shortage of work and qualified for the benefit. She stopped receiving payments after she went back to work in June 2020.

In November 2021, federal Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough issued a statement saying anyone who applied for the benefit before June 14, 2020 through Service Canada received an "advance" payment of $2,000. 

Those who were not entitled or collected CERB for less than 20 weeks would have an outstanding balance of debt, according to the statement.

After receiving the notice of debt in the mail, Northrup called the number on the letter to make a payment arrangement.

Northrup asked if she could pay off the debt when she returned to work in September. When the government employee said she couldn't do that, Northrup agreed to a monthly payment of $32.

When she logged into her online banking app the following month, she saw her parental EI payment was short by over $500.

She called the same number she had before and, after a long wait, an employee answered.

"He told me that the agreement must have been for a withdrawal of 50 per cent of my wages … plus $32 a month," Northrup said. "I definitely did not agree to that."

The whole experience has been "incredibly frustrating," Northrup said, adding that she was passed around on the phone.

"I wrote everything down on a note just so that I could have a good sequence in my head of what happened," she said. "But it's been kind of confusing."