I live in Ontario and am about to go on maternity leave this Friday for my first baby. I have worked in my job since April 23rd, 2012, so not quite a year, but I do know that I qualify for EI payments, as I have worked the 600 hours required in the preceding period. So that's the background, my question is actually a bit more specific and is regarding whether or not I can accrue vacation whilst on maternity leave? I believed that I would, but after speaking to the payroll guy at work (we don't unfortunately have an HR dept) he looked at me puzzled and said that his daughter didn't accrue vacation so he didn't think it applied to me. I'm slightly concerned that he is basing HR policies on what his daughter is experiencing so I am trying to do some research myself!

So far I have found the following on the Ontario Ministry of Labour website:

"Vacation and Leaves of Absence

Because there is no break in the employment relationship during a period of pregnancy, parental, family medical, personal emergency, organ donor, declared emergency, or reservist leave, the time on leave counts toward the completion of a vacation entitlement year or stub period. For example, an employee on leave for all or only part of a vacation entitlement year would have earned a full two weeks of vacation time at the end of the vacation entitlement year. The vacation pay earned during that vacation entitlement year would be a minimum of 4% of any wages actually earned during the year.

Where an employee's contract provides that "paid vacation" is earned through active service (e.g. 1.5 paid vacation days for each month of service or 3 weeks paid vacation for each year of service) an employee on leave may not earn either vacation time and/or pay while on leave. However, at the end of the vacation entitlement year or stub period, the employer must ensure the employee receives the greater of what was in fact earned under the contract and the minimum vacation time, and vacation pay, he or she would have earned under the ESA."

It's seems to imply on the one hand that yes you can accrue, but then again if your contract states paid vacation is earned through active service, then no you are not. My employment contract simply says "You will be entitled to 3 weeks vacation annually". It doesn't say anything about active service.

Does anyone have any recent experience of this? If you do please share!

Can you try someone else in Payroll for a different perspective? What is your managers take on the situation? Is there a collective union agreement in place? Are there any HR policies you can peruse?

I accrued vacation while on mat leave but I'm in alberta so the law may be different, plus I work under a union collective agreement which is clear about the issue. Also, before I went on leave I had to pay my chunk of the health/medical premiums for the year but I did this with some time to spare and they spread the deductions over a few pay days.

Congratulations on what's to come.....

(I go back to work on Monday )

My wife was on mat leave 2011 - 2012, and she did accrue vacation as she was still deemed to be working for her employer.
For six months she received a percentage of her usual pay (not sure the exact percentage, seems to vary depending on whom you work for), the remainder she received only EI and childcare benefit.
She extended her mat leave by a few weeks due to accrued vacation and so went back to work later than she normally would have.

She has worked for employer for quite some time, 8+ years from what I recall, so the length of employment might factor into wether you can / cannot accrue.