Article - http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/619098
Summary
In the following article, leader of the Liberal Party Michael Ignatieff has proposed to reform Canada’s current employment insurance program. This revision came from the fact that more than half of the unemployed in Canada do not qualify for the program’s benefits, even when most of them contribute to the fund through a portion of their paycheque. The problem as Mr. Ignatieff sees it is that the hours worked required for EI is not spread out evenly over unemployed areas in the country. For example, an area with 13% unemployment rate require just 420 hours in the preceding 52 weeks to qualify while an area below 6% requires 700 hours.
Connections
The connection between the chosen article and the current chapter is employment insurance, which is one of the automatic stabilizers not introduced as part of an economic stabilization policy. Employment insurance is supposed to provide money for those to spend and negate some of the negative consequences of unemployment on the economy. However, the current problem of certain areas requiring higher worked hours to qualify makes the EI program somewhat inefficient.
Reflection
Just through reading about the problems of our current employment insurance program, I can see how unfair it may be to those living in areas of lower unemployment rates. Although eligible for the same benefits as others, those unemployed individuals are compared to those that “have paid car insurance premiums for years only to discover after an accident that they are not covered because they live in the wrong town.” This kind of flaw in Canada’s EI program is a great disappointment to many workers and students that will work or is currently working. As one of those students, I believe that the money contributed is not being used to it full potential.
