04 August 2015

#1 Theft of the Employment Insurance Fund


After years of tightening the rules to the point that only a minority of workers will ever be eligible for Employment Insurance benefits, the Minister of Finance dipped into the “surplus” of this fund to help him “balance” his budget.

Never mind that the fund is entirely funded by employees and employers, not the government. Never mind that an insurance fund is supposed to provide for those who need it because they have lost their jobs — for whatever reason. Never mind that this little exercise in prestidigitation seems not even to have succeeded in balancing said budget (according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer)…. We’ll just take that anyway.

I am well aware that this is not the first time and not the first government to have done this (*cough* Liberals), but I’m dishing out my negative kudos to those who are giving us 78 days to reflect on their wrongs this time around…

Further reading here.


A safety net for
would-be workers taken by
budget “balancers”

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