Comments on: Premiers split on how to change EI qualification time

By: annie

annie — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:42:31 +0000

I guess I’m really not understanding. We must be talking about those people who regularly collect EI, not those who are ‘suffering’ job loss from the ‘recession’. Haven’t most people who have suddenly lost their job because of the manufacturing turn or the oil fields or whatever been workers for years and are suddenly laid off due to the changing economy? Surely then, there is no issue with lowering hours… you’ve worked for years, you get EI.

It seems we are spending all this time talking about people who may or may not have anywhere from 360 to 700 hours in their job. that’s just under 18 weeks or 4.5 months. Why are people who have only worked months in any job entitled at all?? The people I worry about is not the chronically unemployed, its those who have worked for years and then lose their job.

If someone works in an industry where they are getting less than 5 months employment at any one time, they either need to save their money and suppport themselves during their chronic downtime or they need to work in an industry that will employ them on a full time basis.

By: MaryT

MaryT — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:47:27 +0000

Average the lowest and the highest, 420 + 700 = 1120/2= 560 hours across Canada. Listen to the Atlantic provinces cry and western provinces cheer.

By: jt

jt — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:34:14 +0000

I have a solution: get rid of EI, it’s just a “tax” on labour nad business and a disincentive to hiring from the corporation’s POV. If you go to work to just collect EI, why go to work in the first place? Stay on welfare. It sure isn’t “insurance”, because if it was, the government wouldn’t try to skimp on the funds and the time to collect them.

Oh yeah, didn’t the Liberal government under Martin use the “surplus” (tax) paid into EI to balance the books, illegally? Isn’t there a court case ongoing about that? Ditch it. Employees can start to save their money for when they get laid off, just like their business owners do. It would boost the national savings rate. Might give them an incentive to work harder and smarter and boost productivity, when all’s said and done.

Think of all those high-paid government jobs that would suddenly not be needed administering this “program” of wealth redistribution. Because that is what it truly is. We taxpayers might save some money on taxes, since the “EI Industry” is paid out of “general revenues”, where all your taxes go and not separately from the EI fund.

We could begin alieviating the cost of doing business here and boost our competiveness worldwide. Businesses here may just be able to compete and make a profit producing stuff we used to pay people here to do, rather than in China or India.