Bloc Québécois introduces employment insurance reform

The Bloc Québécois tabled a bill on Tuesday to improve access to employment insurance and correct certain issues they say.

“The current system, through its various criteria, is unfair, or discriminatory towards certain workers, and that is what we essentially want to correct with the bill,” said Bloc member Louise Chabot in an interview.

“The Bloc is acting where the Liberal government failed.” She describes this bill as “robust amendments to the Employment Insurance Act,” which are “in response to the government’s inertia and laxity.”

A reform was promised in 2015, but only pilot projects have been adopted or adjustments made to the system, recently deplored two organizations dedicated to defending the rights of the unemployed: the Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi (MASSE) and the Mouvement action chômage de Montréal.

The problems to access employment insurance have been denounced for several years. Trade union organizations have already pointed out that only 40 per cent of unemployed people qualify to receive employment insurance benefits.

“It’s really about accessibility issues. Whether we’re talking about illness, or the number of hours to qualify. There are all these issues that mean that today, the system does not protect workers in the worst-case scenario, which is a loss,” said Chabot.

At a press conference on Tuesday in Ottawa, Chabot proposed a single rate of 420 hours or 12 weeks to have access to benefits.

Two issues have been particularly highlighted: workers in seasonal industries and workers on maternity leave whose jobs are abolished after a company restructures.

Also, many workers in seasonal industries fall into what is known as the “black hole,” which is a period when employment insurance benefits have run out and the work has resumed.

Workers on maternity leave who lose their jobs following a corporate restructuring have even ended up in court. These workers do not have access to regular employment insurance benefits because they have not accumulated enough insurable hours of work, since they were on maternity leave when their position was eliminated.

“Our proposal aims precisely to know where the parties will stand on this major issue of employment insurance. They will have to commit themselves,” said Chabot. “Will the Conservatives, who aspire to power, take up the cause and get involved and commit to reforming the system? Will the current government, which is on the verge of collapse, who has promised since 2015 to reform the system but has never done it, take the measure and decide that it can reform the system? I think that this is a proposal where the bill will make its way.”

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews