Laid off her job on maternity leave, a government worker denounces the indifference of politicians, while women who want to start families must fight to have their civil service rights respected.
Pascale Demers, who was Director of Infrastructure and Fixed Assets at the Ministry of Culture and Communication for three and a half years, had no idea she would never return to her duties when she went on maternity leave in January 2019 and was then pregnant with her second son .
“For a woman to have children and take on responsibilities in public service, the ending I know is really not easy! You are ostracized for choosing to have children and you are condemned for it. At least that’s how I experienced it,” she says.
Among other things, the mother of the family criticized the then Minister Nathalie Roy for closing her eyes. Pascale Demers also got the wrong take when the new President of the National Assembly said in a recent interview with Le Journal that she wanted to inspire a new generation of young women.
Photo Didier Debusschere
“Bravo, you have good principles, but you are not even able to address a situation that is troubling in your organization, you have not even led by example.”
She also regrets that former Minister for the Status of Women Isabelle Charest, with whom she spoke last summer, did not lift a finger to acknowledge the “wrong” she suffered.
Like most mothers in Québec, Pascale Demers tries to get into day care early in pregnancy. Upon her return to work, scheduled for January 2020, she is immediately promised a place for her baby. However, when her toddler is five months old, the place becomes unsafe, forcing the mother of the family to consider other options. She then asked HR about deferred leave without ever asking. A few months later, she finally has the guarantee that her child will be able to attend kindergarten when she returns to the ministry.
But in September, in the middle of her maternity leave, she received a call from the personnel director, who warned her that a new organizational chart of the ministry would be published, but her name would no longer be there.
He was relieved of his post “to ensure the continuity of the files”. Worse still, we haven’t decided where she’ll end up when she returns to work. Shocked to be “discriminated against” in this way, Pascale Demers had many conversations with her employer without success. When talks broke down, she filed a complaint with the Public Service Commission.
Originally scheduled before the end of her maternity leave, the hearings have been postponed multiple times. The manager therefore delays her return to work because she wants the conflict to be resolved before she puts the collar back on. Probably a mistake on her part, she now admits. In the end, the commission adheres to the arguments of the ministry and comes to the conclusion that it is a matter of a “theoretical conflict” since Pascale Demers has not returned to work. The commissioner will therefore never rule on the matter, even if the head of human resources admitted during the hearing that the official would not have lost her job had she not gone on maternity leave. So nobody was blamed.
“The working conditions for managers provide that a manager must be reinstated to his position upon return to work if his absence does not exceed 52 weeks. Therefore, if the complainant wished to be reinstated in her position, or legitimately wished to request it, she was obliged to return to work before the 52-week period expired, which she failed to do,” the decision reads.
“It was a really big shock for me,” she says. I was angry, really angry, and I also had several months of unpaid debt.
Upon her return to the Ministry, she was assigned to the Quebec Culture Promotion Secretariat. A whole new feature without having to manage a team. To make matters worse, his former position is vacant. She applied in vain. “Obviously they didn’t give it to me,” she laments.
Pascale Demers is now the head of the Blue Spaces project office. But his dispute with the ministry has left its mark. She is “burned”. “I have given up every opportunity for advancement. In the first few months, when I arrived at the ministry, I caused discomfort whenever I was anywhere,” she recalls.
What she will never forgive, however, is the impact this saga has had on her maternity leave, which is meant to benefit the relationship between a mother and her child.
“It wrecked my maternity leave,” she says. I shouldn’t have to rack my brains [à savoir] whether my employer will treat me well when I return, especially if I am in the public service. It got into my head and poisoned me. At home I was disconnected from everything, I was isolated, I got to brood over it, it caused stress, anxiety, insomnia, I wasn’t even ready to take care of my baby, it had destroyed my peace of mind.”
At the Ministry of Culture we rely on the decision of the Public Service Commission. We don’t care that Pascale Demers was dismissed from her job during her maternity leave, since “the employee is still employed in the department and holds a position at the same level with tasks assigned to this level”.
The guidelines applicable to managers in the public sector provide that an employee “catches up on her duties and mandates (employment)” after her return from parental leave, provided that this does not exceed one year. If the absence is more than 52 weeks, “the employer can change the tasks and mandates of the employee upon her return to such an extent that the work assigned to her is to be regarded as equivalent,” pleads the secretariat of the Treasury Board.
WHAT THE LABOR STANDARDS ACT SAYS ABOUT MATERNITY/PARENT LEAVE
Upon her return to work, the employer must reinstate the worker in her usual position and provide her with the salary and benefits to which she would have been entitled had she not left the job.
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
SUMMER-AUTUMN 2018
Pascale Demers is Director of Investments at the Ministry of Culture and Communication and is pregnant with her second child
JANUARY 31, 2019
birth of the baby
END OF JUNE 2019
Pascale Demers is informed that the daycare place planned for her return to work in January 2020 is ultimately uncertain. She asks HR for information about a deferred leave of absence without ever asking.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019
The head of HR tells Pascale Demers by phone that her position has been withdrawn and that she has not been assigned another one for the time being
11 OCTOBER 2019
Pascale Demers meets Geneviève Vézina, Director General of Administration
23 OCTOBER 2019
Filing a complaint with the Commission de la fonction publique du Québec
NOVEMBER 2019
The daycare center confirms a place for Pascale Demers’ second boy for his return to work in January 2020
4 SEPTEMBER AND 25 SEPTEMBER 2020
After several postponements, Public Service Commission hearings
31 OCTOBER 2020
The Head of Human Resources informs Pascale Demers that she will be joining the secretariat’s team to promote Québec culture
NOVEMBER 2, 2020
Back to work by Pascal Demers, without a team