Proposed EI reforms suggest Tories have finally got it right
After a series of botched files, government unveils tidy, sensible, moderate fixes
Why not extend the … sensible, common- sense fixes clearly explained … to other critical portions of Bill C- 38, the 450- page omnibus budget Frankenbill?
For half a year the Harper Conservatives have been on the defensive as they botched files big, medium and small. Then, with not even a polite warning beforehand, they got something almost exactly right. The opposition, caught flat- footed by this eerie and untimely turn of events, could do little but sputter.
For weeks now, thanks partly to the aforementioned bungling ( more on that later), Canadians have heard the opposition fume about Stephen Harper’s looming war on the unemployed. But the reforms to employment insurance ( EI) unveiled Thursday were anything but draconian.
These are tidy, sensible and moderate fixes that will be overwhelmingly popular with the vast majority of Canadians who take the time to understand them. The changes are long overdue.
For example: Is it fair or sensible that some people work all their lives and never or rarely collect EI, while others in seasonal occupations — commercial fishing, landscaping, roofing, say — collect it every year, while both groups contribute equally, and have equal rights to benefits? Of course it isn’t fair. That it’s always been this way does not change this.
So, under the new system, there will be three categories of claimants: longtenured workers, who have paid into the system for seven of the past 10 years and have in the past five years received 35 or fewer weeks of EI; frequent claimants, who have made three or more claims for regular or “fishing” EI benefits and have collected for 60 weeks or more in the past five years; and occasional claimants, everyone else.
In general, longer- tenured workers who have not drawn heavily on the system will be given leeway to hold out significantly longer for a better, higher- paying job in their field. More frequent claimants will be required to be less choosy about the jobs they seek and accept. But no one will be required to take a job for which they are unsuited, or at less than 70 per cent of their previous working wage.
Will the unemployed 55- year- old female dental hygienist from Burlington, Ont., be forced to pull up stakes and head to Fort Mcmurray, Alta, there to seek work as a pipefitter or a roughneck?
Well, no. It turns out the migrations envisioned are considerably shorter than that; a commute of an hour, more or less. In big, congested cities such as Toronto, where a one- hour commute is common, a claimant might be required to travel a little longer than an hour to work, each way.
But even then, there’s ample wiggle room built in, via a new definition of “suitable employment.” A claimant’s personal circumstances, working conditions and hours of work in the prospective job, along with previous salary, experience, qualifications, and the like., will be taken into account in determining whether any given job is “suitable.”
The unemployed millwright, in other words, will not be required to accept a job picking grapes. Though if he chooses to pick grapes to supplement his EI, he won’t be penalized. Human Resources and Skills Development Minister Diane Finley stressed the new system will ensure a claimant is always financially better off if he or she works even part- time, while collecting EI benefits. The thinking is, part- time jobs often lead to full- time jobs, and it makes no sense to penalize claimants for taking what work they can, while looking for something better.
Now the Opposition, led by NDP finance critic Peggy Nash, was all geared up for Judgment Day. They’d been primed for this mainly by the offthecuff musings of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who remarked a couple of weeks ago that “There is no bad job, the only bad job is not having a job.”
Thursday Nash tried gamely to stick to the hard line, insisting the reforms were about “demonizing” or “scapegoating” the unemployed. Given the actual content of the announcement and the clarity of Finley’s delivery, that came across as wild exaggeration.
All of which poses the question: Why not extend the approach in evidence Thursday — that is, sensible, common- sense fixes clearly explained — to other critical portions of Bill C- 38, the 450- page omnibus budget Frankenbill?
By far the best way for the Tories to broach this fight now would be to break out the resource- management reforms in C- 38, and give them the Finley treatment.