Employment insurance

The Globe and Mail reported today that Canada is facing a jobless recovery, as businesses are not expecting to hire in 2010 and public sector positions are being eliminated.

The article quotes Sébastien Lavoie, assistant chief economist at Laurentian Bank Securities, who predicts that we will see employment restored to its pre-recession level in 2011. Read more »

Last week, just before the government’s presentation of Budget 2010, the Alternative Federal Budget (AFB), a project coordinated by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), released their Alternative Federal Budget 2010. Employment issues topped their list of priorities. Employment also topped the priority list of Budget 2010. Let’s see how they compare! Read more »

International Women’s Day is approaching in less than two weeks, and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action and Canadian Labour Congress don’t have great news for women as we prepare to mark that day. In a report released yesterday, they note that the rights of women are being systematically eroded in Canada. Read more »

Check out the photos from the Dish on Dignity, an event hosted by Citizens for Public Justice, Canada Without Poverty and the Dignity for All Campaign. The Dish on Dignity brought together parliamentarians, social justice advocates and low income folks for a conversation about the reality of poverty in Canada and ways to eliminate it. Read more »

I’m back in the office after some time off for health reasons and a family vacation, so I’m catching up on several months worth of reading. Today, I came across the September issue of Policy Options, which focused on Employment Insurance. While the articles clearly present the flaws of EI – in addition to a few flaws that only economists worry about – I found the proposed solutions to be quite limited.

However, I was also surprised to discover that Tom Courchene and John Allan advocate for a revised EI in the context of a guaranteed annual income. (I can’t link to the article, but you can click through to it from the main page).They argue that EI should be restructured as an insurance program, limiting benefits to a weeks-worked basis that applies evenly across the country. But to achieve social policy goals of income security and redistribution, they propose a guaranteed annual income in a Negative Income Tax version. Read more »

Last week the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released a report Is EI working for Canada’s unemployed? Analyzing the Great Recession, by Andrew Jackson and Sylvain Schetagne. The report, part of the Alternative Federal Budget project, evaluates the state of Canada’s Employment Insurance system. In preparation for the release of Budget 2010, the CCPA is calling for an extension of benefits for EI. Read more »

Last year as part of Budget 2009, the government adopted a stimulus package to help boost the economy, which included increases to Working and Child tax benefits. However, the package was far from complete, especially concerning the most vulnerable Canadians - those living in poverty, many of whom have incomes too low to qualify for the tax benefits.  

Poverty was not even mentioned in the budget although these concerns are often most dire in times of economic crisis. Increased job losses coupled with already low incomes and insufficient social assistance has devastated so many across the country. Budget 2009 did not identify these specific problems, nor did it propose a strategy for poverty reduction in Canada. Read more »