Posted: Thursday, 24 May 2012

As published in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, May 24, 2012

The federal government wants to make dramatic changes to Employment Insurance that are fundamentally wrong and unfair to working people. We fear that the changes, hidden in a 452-page budget bill, will prepare the way for big brother to bully unemployed people receiving EI benefits into taking any job anywhere at any time. It is all part of the government’s low-wage strategy, which will deliver another blow to Canada’s beleaguered middle class.

The main target is workers in Atlantic Canada but other high unemployment areas of the country will also be affected. Where is this coming from? In 2002, as leader of the Canadian Alliance, Stephen Harper said of Atlantic Canada, "There is a dependence in the region that breeds a culture of defeatism." Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister, recently quipped that "there is no bad job," and now there are media reports that the department responsible for administering EI is studying how to make recipients move far away from their communities to take work. 

The irony here is that it is not the government's money at stake but rather that of workers themselves. They (and their employers) pay for an insurance plan that is supposed to tide workers over between losing one job and looking for a another. Anyone can lose a job.

The Finance Minister may say that there are no bad jobs but the existing Employment Act says that there are, indeed, bad jobs and that in some cases unemployed workers should not be forced to take them. The vast majority of regular EI claimants welcome positive efforts to assist them in a search for employment, and they will not turn down reasonable job opportunities. There are rules in place to see to that.

The changes being proposed will give the Human Resources Minister the power to decide on her own what constitutes "suitable employment" for EI claimants, and to define "reasonable and customary efforts" to find work. Forcing workers to take the first available job is not good labour market policy since periods of job search allow for a better fit between unemployed workers and job vacancies across the country.

Government ministers regularly say or imply that there are thousands of jobs going unfilled in Canada because the unemployed do not want to work. This is simply not the case.  Statistics Canada reports there were six unemployed workers for every reported job vacancy in Canada in the three months ending in January 2012, rising to about 10 unemployed workers for every open job slot in Atlantic Canada.

Unfortunately, the government has no plan for assisting in creating good jobs. Its only strategy is to give away billions in tax breaks to corporations - $13 billion this year alone - with no strings attached and in the hope that they will create jobs. So far, they have under-performed but government ministers prefer to blame and punish the unemployed.

It’s worth mentioning that over 60% of unemployed Canadians don't receive EI at all. This is the result of a failed system that punishes part-time workers, whose numbers are growing in our workforce. For all of the talk of skills shortages in Canada, there is no increased investment the government’s budget for EI supported training which would assist unemployed workers.  Instead, the focus is on tightening the screws on those those who have managed to qualify for a claim.

Successive governments have meddled so much that EI is a far cry from the insurance system built by worker and employer contributions. They've made it harder to qualify for the meagre benefits, they've pilfered the EI surplus to pay down government debt, and they continue to blame the unemployed when the statistics clearly show there aren't enough jobs being created.   

There has been virtually no public consultation on the changes wrapped within this jumbo budget bill and as a result they have not received enough critical attention. We want the government to split off provisions regarding changes to Employment Insurance so that they can receive adequate scrutiny and debate.

Ken Georgetti is president of the 3.3 million member Canadian Labour Congress.