Academic Women’s Caucus, University of Victoria
On the morning of June 17th, 2026, the Academic Women’s Caucus (AWC) hosted a hybrid panel about maternity, parental, and adoption leaves; the panel was well-attended, both online and in-person.
The panel was moderated by Gillian Calder, a professor in the Faculty of Law whose research sits at the intersection of Canadian constitutional law and how the law regulates our understanding of family. With respect to maternity and parental leave, she studied how the leave is administered, how benefits are delivered, and how that impacts the choices that people, mostly women, make in their workplace.
The panelists were Sophia Carodenuto (Associate Professor Geography, and Director of Global Development Studies), Katherine Elvira (Associate Professor Chemistry, and a Canada Research Chair), Ying Liu (Humanities Librarian for Asian Studies, Religious Studies, and international student support), and Svetlana Oshkai (Associate Teaching Professor Mathematics and Statistics).
A leave that is more complicated than it looks, from a legal standpoint
Gillian explained that maternity and parental benefits in Canada are delivered through the Employment Insurance Act (EI), which pays roughly 55% of income up to a weekly cap of around $730, with a top-up provided to eligible employees under UVic’s Collective Agreement for a limited period that does not cover the full length of leave. Because the benefit is tied to EI, it carries restrictive eligibility requirements; for many parents, including Gillian herself, as a foster and single parent, this benefit did not apply. Gillian’s early research explored the decision made by the federal government to extend the benefit period in 2000; this decision seemed equality-enhancing, but attaching it to EI meant people who might need it most often could not access it. Her research, then and now, looks at how the benefit might be delivered in a more inclusive manner.
Planning for maternity leave
The first question Gillian asked was: “Can you walk us through what the process of planning your leave looked like? What did you wish you had known earlier?”
Katherine, a dedicated planner, talked about getting fluent in the Collective Agreement, clarifying her own values, and protecting her research career. She learned how to say no to time-consuming but less essential research tasks, such as peer reviews and editorial work. She also focused on finding a mentor who had both recently had a child and the kind of career she wanted; such mentors are hard to find, so she extended her search outside UVic.
Ying did not have enough time for planning, being deeply immersed in a project when she got pregnant. Looking back, her advice is to ask questions early, especially about how leave interacts with evaluation and promotion.
Sophia was on a limited-term appointment at the time, which receives no salary top-up, so her leave meant a steep drop in the family’s income. She pointed out that advice is hard to give because every situation is so unique and discipline-specific that meaningful mentor-matching may be unrealistic. Planning, she noted, is a luxury many parents don’t have.
Childcare, a difficult hurdle for the transition back to work
Svetlana’s story engrossed the audience. When she became pregnant, the guidance was to join the UVic daycare waitlist after the birth. By the time her daughter arrived, the rules had quietly changed to allow registration during pregnancy, with no announcement she’d seen, so she was on the 74th spot on the waitlist. For roughly four months she and her spouse, also a faculty member at UVic, improvised infant care between back-to-back lectures, accepted help from a friend who’d just lost her job, and got a spot at a downtown daycare that required an hour of driving each way.
The childcare conversation also surfaced a policy that can lead to a lot of emotional stress; the current rule lets you join the waitlist once pregnant, with a doctor’s note. For people who have miscarriages, it is a burden to have to call back and remove themselves after a loss — sometimes more than once. Policies that look sensible “in the perfect situation,” Sophia argued, can add more pain to an already painful experience.
Identity and professional belonging
Asked how the maternity leave affected their sense of professional identity, most panelists were positive. Sophia and Katherine felt genuinely supported by their chairs and colleagues. Ying also credited supportive supervisors and colleagues who shared practical advice.
All panelists agreed about not being able to fully switch off during the leave. Svetlana relayed a colleague’s metaphor that stuck with everyone: a bus driver returning from leave has no buses waiting, but a professor opens the mailbox to find “500 buses” that all have to be driven. She kept checking and curating her email throughout her leave, as a sanity choice.
What the audience wanted to know
Can you keep supervising graduate students while on leave?
The short answer is no, from a legal standpoint; you’re not allowed to work while collecting EI, a rule designed with good intentions, so that no employer can force you to work. But as Katherine noted, this does not really work for academics. Reference letters for graduate students, prize nominations, and invitations to guest lectures all arrive on their own schedule and can’t simply be done in advance. Katherine tried, unsuccessfully, to set up a short-term postdoc to cover these time-sensitive duties.
What about going up for tenure or promotion during leave?
There’s no provision in the collective agreement for applying while on leave, so the practical options are to apply early (as Katherine did) or to take the extra time the clock provides (as Svetlana did). The advice was to consult the Faculty Association to make sure your clock is counted correctly and to get support if you need it.
Can you return part-time?
Yes. As Elizabeth Gugl (Economics and member of the AWC steering committee) explained, the collective agreement has a reduced-workload process that doesn’t depend on your reason for asking. Again, the panel pointed people to the Faculty Association to find the right article and understand the trade-offs.
With thanks
The AWC thanks the panelists for their candor and vulnerability, moderator Gillian Calder, Jane Butterfield for making the hybrid format possible, and Pia Russell for helping organize the event in the Digital Scholarship Commons. Questions or follow-ups can be sent to the AWC chair, Alexandra Branzan-Albu, at aalbu@uvic.ca.
