“With my area, to be very frank, I have as many people who mentioned to me that the reforms are going in the right direction as there are that mentioned they have concerns about it. And the concerns, when I chat with people, the concerns are [a matter of] not understanding the reforms,” Conservative MP Rodney Weston (Saint John, N.B.) told The Hill Times. Mr. Weston’s riding has an 8.3 per cent unemployment rate, according to the 2006 census.
Introduced as part of the government’s omnibus budget Bill C-38 in April, the proposed new EI regulations are expected to come into effect early next year. Until then, the full picture and final wording of the proposed EI reforms remains unknown.
On May 24, Human Resources and Skills Development Minister Diane Finley (Haldimand-Norfolk, Ont.) announced the government’s proposed reforms at a press conference in Ottawa. She outlined the changes, providing the criteria upon which important definitions such as “suitable employment” will be based.
The proposed EI reforms will affect regular and fishing EI benefits and aim to remove “disincentives to employment,” as described by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.) at the end of May. The new regulations would tighten the criteria and timeframes with which different groups of EI claimants can seek and accept new employment.
Frequent claimants will be given six weeks to find a job within a “similar occupation” as their previous job and which pays at least 80 per cent of their previous earnings. After that, they would be required to take “any work” that pays at least 70 per cent of their previous earnings.
Long-tenured workers will have 18 weeks to find a “same occupation” job with a salary at least 90 per cent of their previous pay and after that would have to find a “similar occupation” that provides at least 80 per cent of former earnings.
Meanwhile, occasional claimants will have six weeks to find a “same occupation” at 90 per cent of previous earnings, and will have 12 more weeks to find a “similar occupation” at 80 per cent of earnings, before they will have to take “any work” at 70 per cent of their previous earnings. A new job alerts system is also being proposed which would provide Canadians with more frequent information about available jobs from a wider range of sources. Ms. Finley has said $21-million will be invested to implement the proposed new system.
“We recognize there are Canadians who have difficulty finding work, particularly in areas where it is mainly seasonal work or seasonal industries or one-industry towns. We would help those people get access to jobs that do exist. However, if they do not exist, we would ensure that they still have access to EI,” said Ms. Finley in the House of Commons on June 1.
The national unemployment rate in Canada is 7.3 per cent, according to the April 2012 Labour Force Survey. The number of EI beneficiaries decreased between 2009 and September 2011, and has since remained at a relatively stable level, with 549,400 people reportedly receiving regular EI benefits as of last March, according to Statistics Canada. Approximately 40 per cent of Canadians are eligible to receive EI, with the majority of claims made in rural, Northern Canada, and Atlantic Canada.
On June 6, the proposed EI reforms were a hot topic at the annual meeting of the four Atlantic premiers: Progressive Conservative Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale, Liberal P.E.I. Premier Robert Ghiz, NDP Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter, and Progressive Conservative New Brunswick Premier David Alward.
All four of the Atlantic premiers have been outspoken against the proposed reforms and have said the EI reforms will hurt their provinces. They also criticized a lack of consultation.
At their June 6 meeting, the four premiers urged for more details on how seasonal workers will be affected by EI changes and struck up a new workforce partnership to gauge where labour shortages lie in their region.
Still, despite concerns from Atlantic premiers, Conservative MPs from those same provinces said concerns over the reforms are largely just a lack of understanding.
Conservative MP John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, N.B.), who has an 11 per cent unemployment rate in his riding, said he’s been getting calls about the reforms on a “relatively frequent basis” and said one person in his constituency office has been tasked with reviewing and explaining the changes.
Mr. Williamson said his office is responding to calls or emails about the reforms on an individual basis.
Mr. Williamson said “there are an awful lot of people in Atlantic Canada who do understand that the system should be changed,” but said the reforms are “an issue” in his riding.
“We’re taking people’s concerns very seriously…I have a number of seasonal workers in the areas, as well as fishing communities, so this is why we’re dealing with this in the way we are,” said Mr. Williamson.
Conservative MP Mike Allen (Tobique-Mactaquac, N.B.), whose riding has a 9.5 per cent unemployment rate, said “it’s very important for us to have a very good communications package on this.” He said he’s taking time to call constituents and iron out their concerns.
Mr. Allen said he has a large seasonal potato industry in his riding, and noted that “anywhere you’ve got a lot of seasonal work its going to be an issue.”
But Mr. Allen said in his riding “not very many” people are upset about the proposed reforms.
“In fact, two weekends ago I had more against, last weekend I had more for,” said Mr. Allen. “When people actually call you, when you talk them through it, they sort of understand where you’re going on it.”
Mr. Allen noted that as the regulations are yet to be published there will be some more communications “heavy lifting” when the changes rollout next year.
Conservative MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake, Man.), whose riding has a 5.6 per cent unemployment rate, said the only concerns he’s heard have come from commercial fishers in his riding, “but when you sit down and explain to them…they seem to be okay with the changes and everybody else I’ve talked to understands why we’re making the changes.”
Conservative MP Rob Clarke (Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River, Sask.), whose riding has a 15.9 per cent unemployment rate, said he’s had a “couple of calls” from people looking for clarification on the reforms.
“We see what the opposition’s trying to do, the false media ads or false spins on it, and we’re just trying to provide further clarification on what is coming down the line,” said Mr. Clarke.
Conservative MP Bryan Hayes (Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.), who has an 8.3 per cent unemployment rate in his riding, said of the reforms: “I’m not getting emails and phone calls that are causing me concern, so I’m not sure at this stage in the game that it’s been identified as a huge issue in my riding.”
But on the other side of the House, opposition MPs are reporting a much more severe state of reaction to the EI changes.
“There are a lot of nervous people, clearly this is being perceived as an attack on seasonal industries, in particular in rural communities throughout Canada...People are nervous, people are scared and yes they’re upset,” said Liberal MP Judy Foote (Random-Burin-St.George’s, Nfld.), who has a 26.4 per cent unemployment rate in her riding. Her riding is 90 per cent rural.
Ms. Foote said while she thinks a strong public backlash to the reforms “may not be imminent, it will come when people start being affected by the changes…that’s when you will see a very public outcry insisting that this can’t happen, that these decisions must be reversed.”
NDP MP Niki Ashton (Churchill, Man.), who has a 15.6 per cent unemployment rate in her riding, said she’s received calls from presidents of fisheries associations, has talked to leaders in the First Nations community, and to individuals concerned about the changes. But Ms. Ashton said many of the seasonal workers in her riding who will be affected by changes are off in remote locations doing seasonal work and aren’t able to state their opposition to the reforms, something Ms. Ashton said is likely part of the government’s “strategy.”
Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton-Canso, N.S.), who has a 15.8 per cent unemployment rate in his riding, said he’s heard from more businesses and business owners in his community than individuals, but said people in his riding are “very concerned.”
“I think that the current government doesn’t have an understanding as to how this is going to impact on the area. So, obviously, the voices from those communities affected aren’t being heard or are being ignored by this government. So whether it’s those from rural ridings in Nova Scotia aren’t voicing their concerns, or those concerns are being ignored, it’s one or the other,” said Mr. Cuzner.
In 1996, the then federal Liberal government changed the name of the unemployment insurance UI system to EI and imposed a number of changes to the system, including the “intensity rule” which impacted seasonal workers as it reduced the amount of benefits paid to repeat users with each claim. Public backlash to the changes were such that the Liberals lost a significant number of seats in Atlantic Canada and by 2000 then Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien reversed the controversial reforms and apologized for them during that year’s election campaign.
Both Tim Powers, a Conservative pundit and vice-president of Summa Strategies, and Elly Alboim, a former federal Liberal strategist and now a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group, said it’s too soon to tell if Canadians will have a similar reaction to this government’s proposed EI reforms as it’s still years away from an election and the new regulations have yet to be published.
Mr. Powers, who was travelling last week in Newfoundland when he spoke to The Hill Times, said people in the province are talking about the changes, but said reaction has died down since the reforms were first announced: “I think people are now trying to get past the initial reaction and see what it means to them when they may need to avail of it.”
Mr. Alboim, who was “deeply involved” in the Liberal government’s mid-90s EI changes, consulting with both Finance Canada and HRSDC, said while the full regulations aren’t out yet, compared to previous attempts “these are somewhat less dramatic…whether that leads to a lesser degree of opposition, I don’t know. Sometimes it doesn’t take all that much for people to get quite angry, sometimes they shrug.”
Mr. Alboim also pointed out that unlike with the current government, the Liberal government in the mid-90s “really needed the Atlantic provinces,” where backlash to the changes was strongest.
Mr. Alboim said the proposed EI reforms will “likely” be a politically difficult situation for Conservative MPs with ridings in rural and Atlantic Canada and noted that “Mr. MacKay was out very hard, very quick to downplay the reforms and to address them head on. Obviously he wouldn’t be doing that if he didn’t think there was a potential problem.”
Some observers have noted that the majority of ridings to be most impacted by the changes to EI—that is rural and Atlantic areas where unemployment and seasonal work is highest—are predominantly opposition ridings.
Mr. Alboim said he’s “not sure that’s political design,” but said “they [the Conservative government] would not have been unaware that the largest pockets of people who would be affected by this were likely in ridings that they’re not counting on to form a majority.”
Colin Busby, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, said he doesn’t see the Conservative government’s proposed reforms as being “near as strong as the reforms that took place in the mid-1990s, and so far the outrage to the proposed reforms by the current government has been people in rural, remote regions in Atlantic Canada. I think when you look at the details of the [current] reform, that perhaps they’re just remembering what happened in the ’90s as opposed to sort of looking at the details on their face.”
Mr. Busby said EI is a “very sensitive topic,” and said he thinks the reforms that are being proposed were drawn up keeping in mind the backlash that was felt by the Liberals in the 1990s.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Laura Ryckewaert
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