Even as Canadians are struggling through a second major recession in three decades, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wants to tighten up the Employment Insurance system even further by redefining "suitable employment" and "reasonable efforts" at finding employment.
These changes could mean that you will be denied employment benefits if you refuse to relocate for a work opportunity or turn down a job that is outside your field or below your salary requirements.
Flaherty maintains that these changes are needed to lower the $10-billion (and counting) EI deficit--a deficit that the PC government itself created after plundering the EI surplus of $55-billion shortly before the global economic downturn.
At this point in Canada's fragile economic recovery, such changes are unfair, unnecessary, and undemocratic.
Help remind the Finance Minister that EI is NOT a government-funded program. It is an insurance policy paid for by Canadian employers and employees, and we will NOT stand for Flaherty's draconian new policies.
Dear Minister Jim Flaherty,
We the undersigned, strongly urge Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to refrain from implementing draconian changes to Employment Insurance which would see claims and benefits denied to the working poor.
We understand that measures must be taken to discourage exploitation of the EI system but these proposed changes do not address the cause of the abuse nor will they be effective in stemming it. Rather, it punishes the hard working Canadians who have paid into the system and now, through no fault of their own, need this assistance the most.
We remind Mr. Flaherty that EI is NOT a government funded program and demand that EI surplus funds diverted to General Revenue coffers be returned to the contributors for whose benefit they were meant for.
Thank you.
