Employment Insurance (EI) has always been an important program for workers in Canada who lose their jobs. It’s even more important now in the face of US tariffs.
The tariffs are expected to cause wide-ranging layoffs for workers in industries directly impacted by tariffs, but also for workers who are indirectly impacted. An estimated 2.4 million Canadian workers could be negatively affected, while some predict half a million Ontarians face losing their jobs. The most marginalized workers, including racialized and newcomer workers, workers with disabilities, women, and youth will be especially hard hit. In its current form, EI is not ready to respond to a crisis of this scale.
After much advocacy by community and labour organizations across Canada, including ISAC, the federal government has made some small changes to make EI more accessible and to better support workers who receive it.
The temporary changes include:
- Expanding the EI Work-Sharing Program – the Work-Sharing Program is meant to help employers avoid layoffs by providing EI to eligible employees who must temporarily reduce their work hours during a business slowdown. The government has temporarily extended the length of time a Work-Sharing agreement can stay in place and has expanded the types of businesses eligible to participate. This measure will be in place for one year.
- Artificially boosting the regional unemployment rates used to determine access to and duration of EI benefits. The rate will be boosted by one percentage point in all EI regions, with no region seeing an unemployment rate of less than 7.1%. This means workers will require fewer hours to qualify for EI. Workers will require 630 insurable hours or less to qualify for regular EI benefits, depending on their region, and may be eligible for up to four additional weeks of benefits. This measure will be in effect for only three months.
- Allowing claimants to receive EI benefits sooner by suspending the rules around treatment of severance pay, vacation pay, and other similar payments workers receive when they are laid off so that they do not need to be used up before workers are able to start receiving EI benefits. This measure will be in effect for six months.
- Waiving the waiting period so that workers will be able to receive benefits for the first week of unemployment. All claimant types (regular, special, fishing) are eligible for this measure. This measure will be in effect for six months.
We need extensive and permanent EI reform to deal with tariffs and beyond
ISAC welcomes these temporary measures, but they do not go far enough in supporting workers today, and do not respond to the problems with EI that we and many others have been raising for years. EI’s deficiencies became painfully obvious during the pandemic. They have not yet been addressed, despite lengthy consultations on reforms.
Now is the time for Canada’s primary social safety net, the EI program, to step up and safeguard workers by providing the reliable income security they need. The current EI program’s long-standing issues, including the lack of flexibility and stringent eligibility criteria, make it ill-equipped to meet the challenge.
We call for permanent changes to ease access to EI and enhance the benefits, including making changes to:
- Ensure workers receive at least 52 weeks of EI benefits, with the best 12 weeks of earnings used to calculate benefit rates.
- Ensure weekly EI income support of no less than $500 per week. This measure must include weekly income support for misclassified workers and migrant workers.
- Reduce the threshold for accessing EI Regular and Special Benefits to 360 hours.
- Implement stronger protections for employees misclassified as independent contractors, including expanding EI’s definition of employee to include dependent contractors as well as workers engaged in app-based work.
You can read more about our recent recommendations to the government here, including recommendations for permanent changes to improve EI accessibility and benefit rates. ISAC is also a member of the Interprovincial EI Working Group, which has posted an open letter with its recommendations for immediate EI changes here.
You can also take action by joining Justice for Workers’ No One Left Behind Campaign here.