The Parental Sharing Benefit (aka ‘daddy days’) was introduced in a 2019 EI policy change. It provides either 5 or 8 weeks of ‘use it or lose it time’ to the person who did not give birth to the child. It’s a pretty great benefit that is aimed squarely at fathers, who have a bit of a lacklustre history of taking time off for childcare.

But here’s a gotcha for anyone planning to use this benefit: this extra time must be taken within the benefits period.

Because these weeks must be taken within the 12 months (standard benefits) or 18 months (extended benefits) following the birth of the child, some part of this ‘free’ time must overlap with the mother’s leave. The Government of Canada’s guide isn’t nearly as explicit about this as it could be.

One thing that doesn’t work is to plan for the mother to take her full 50 weeks of leave and then the father to take his 5 ‘free’ weeks afterward, making a total of a little over a year of having someone at home with the baby - this will result in losing 3 of the 5 weeks of the shared benefit since it will fall outside of the 12 month period.

This is a potentially very frustrating detail to miss, so don’t get caught out - make sure to plan to use up these ‘free’ 5 or 8 weeks within the benefits period.