Make EI Equal

The EI system discriminates against the most vulnerable groups in Canada. As the government considers reform, equality should be a priority.

The working group on EI reform set up by Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff seems to be heading for the rocks after only one meeting. Diane Findley, the lead Tory member of the group, has already signaled a possible impasse.

She accused Ignatieff and other Liberal members of being in academic fantasy land for insisting on 360 hours of work as a national standard to qualify for EI benefits. Such a drop in the eligibility threshold, she argued, would inevitably require higher levels of taxation.

The Liberals claim that this is a gross distortion of the impact of a national standard and that, moreover, they are proposing the national standard of 360 hours of work as their “entry point” in the negotiations and that the standard would terminate with the end of a jobs recession, therefore not creating the need to raise taxes.

The partisan sniping has been going on since the working group was established, even though it was sold as an example of the minority government working in the interests of all Canadians.

There is economic merit in both positions. Keeping taxes affordable is in the interests of Canadians who are fortunate to have jobs. Giving Canadians who have suffered job losses through no fault of their own sufficient income to survive this brutal recession could also assist in the economic recovery.

However, Canada is not built on economic considerations alone. It may have made more economic sense to have the small Canadian population merge into the larger market in the Great Republic to the south of us, but we haven’t done that.

This country was built on common social and constitutional values that transcend economic tenets.

At the core of the growing sentiment that the EI system must be reformed may be the view that in Canada, every citizen should be treated equally. Such equality is most challenged when it rubs up against the challenges of economic hard times, as is evident today.

Long standing regulations make EI benefits much more difficult to get in regions where there was formerly relatively low unemployment. But because of the deepening recession, these regions are potentially the areas of highest job losses.

In what was formerly the wealthiest province in Canada, Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty asserted in 2008 that the average unemployed worker in Ontario last year received $5,110 in EI benefits, compared to an average worker in the rest of Canada who received $9,070. The difference at that time amounted to about $1.7 billion for Ontario's over 500,000 unemployed, a gap which the Premier is asking the Tory government, so far without success, to close

What is becoming apparent is that, even in the wealthiest cities in Canada, good jobs with benefits in the manufacturing sector are disappearing, replaced by part-time, low-wage, zero-benefits, temporary service sector jobs (what some are calling McJobs). In Canada, it is estimated that more that 50 per cent of those who have paid into the EI system in such jobs have been deemed ineligible.

An EI system based on where one lives can result in systemic discrimination. The requirement that new entrants or re-entrants to work extra hours to qualify for benefits disproportionately affects youth, immigrants, and women who have been out of the workforce to raise families

In Toronto, a new entrant has to work 910 hours to qualify while those with a longer work history requires 665 hours. This is discrimination against the most vulnerable in our society is pushing many on to the welfare rolls, with the attendant assault on their dignity.

Some have argued that women working at or near minimum wage are most susceptible to being driven into the ranks of the poor. The EI benefit of 55 per cent of salary, for single parent women and their children is a recipe for a poverty spiral that should make us all feel a sense of societal shame.

The present EI system may well be a violation of, if not the letter, then the spirit of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 15 of the Charter guarantees Canadians the right to equality before and under the law and to equal protection of the law. The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court limits the application of the guarantee to government discrimination, including adverse impact discrimination based on the enumerated or analogous personal characteristics of individuals or groups.

There have been severe adverse impacts imposed by the EI system on low wage women workers, new immigrants and young people, some of the most vulnerable groups in our society.

Given the undermining of our constitutional guarantee of equal citizenship by the present EI system, Parliament should consider reforms that focus on the real lives of individual Canadians affected by the recession, not on the location of where they live.