After the near-death experience for the Harper Conservatives in November, I expected Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to table a budget that would be responsive to growing concerns about the state of the Canadian economy.

And I admit, many of the budget leaks leading up to the official announcement made it seem like Harper was finally in touch with this reality – the proposed increased spending on infrastructure and programmes would provide jobs while tax cuts would spur consumer spending.

When the budget was finally tabled, it did address a number of these issues. And while I applaud the government for making much-needed (and highly uncharacteristic) investments in social spending, they really missed the ball on one key issue …

Employment Insurance (EI).

As it stands right now, in order to access EI, you need to work between 420 and 910 hours – this number fluctuates based on the unemployment rate of your economic region. And you need to serve a two-week waiting period for benefits – in addition to the 3 to 4 weeks it can take to process a claim.

Once approved, you receive 55% of your insurable earnings, up to a maximum of $447 per week. These benefits last from 14 to 45 weeks, depending on the type of benefit, regional unemployment rates, and the hours worked in the previous year.

In the budget, Flaherty announced two changes to the EI programme. First, there would an increase in funding for retraining and job-sharing programmes. Second, EI recipients could now receive an additional 5 weeks of benefits, up to a maximum of 50 weeks.

Prior to the budget, labour organizations, and even some economists were calling for changes to the system – the growing consensus was for an increase in funding for retraining programmes combined with a universal 360 insurable hour threshold for all applicants and a higher weekly benefit based on the best 12 weeks in the last 26 weeks of employment.

Despite these calls for change, the Harper government only made minor tweaks to the system and they wasted an opportunity to truly help Canadians weather the financial storm.

And therefore, the current system still remains flawed for two key reasons. First, from an access standpoint, too many people pay into the system and cannot access it when they need it. Not only does this put undue hardship onto those that have lost their job, but it also strains municipal and provincial social assistance programmes.

Secondly, the weekly benefit provided by EI simply is not enough. 55% of weekly earnings are not enough to maintain oneself, let alone a family. And the prospect of having to wait upwards of 6 weeks for benefits can really push unemployed Canadians into debt.

While these have been concerns for years, the government had an opportune time to address these and fix the system – made all the better by their recent decision to have the EI fund managed by a separate government agency.

Yet, the 2009 Budget did not contain any substantial changes to the EI programme. And I have to wonder how many more Canadians will lose their jobs before the Harper government realizes that the EI system is fundamentally broken.

And until Harper and Flaherty understand the importance of functioning and responsive income support programmes during times of economic turmoil, they’ll be painted as incredibly out of touch with Canadians.

And if memory serves me correctly, wasn’t that why they came perilously close to defeat in November?

Related posts:

1. Conservatives Unveil Budget, Pump Money into Economy Today, the federal government revealed its highly anticipated budget and...
2. Harper Talks Budget and Stimulus Plan Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced some preliminary information on the...
3. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s Economic Policy of Deficit Reduction is Not What it Seems Let’s get straight to the point. The deficit is an...
4. Ignatieff Blames Harper for Upcoming Budget Deficit Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff lashed out at Harper for the...
5. Speech From the Throne, Budget, Stimulus Plan & More There’s no doubt the last few weeks in Canadian politics...

Tags: Budget, employment insurance, jim flaherty, stephen harper, stimulus plan

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Federal Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.