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PrintSomething tells me an election will be sooner rather than later
Come September, there is no easy fix to an Employment Insurance problem that goes way beyond uniform eligibility rules.
OTTAWA—History has a funny way of repeating itself. At the tail end of the last recession, I sat on a Cabinet committee established specifically to deal with the delicate issue of unemployment insurance reform.
We were facing a $42-billion annual deficit, our international financial reputation was in the dumpster and we had just been elected with a promise to turn things around.
The financial miracle could not have happened without tackling the sticky issue of employment insurance. Human resources minister Lloyd Axworthy was leading the charge and prime minister Jean Chrétien created a special committee of Cabinet to help him.
We spent months sifting through graphs and proposals, designed to tackle the tricky issue of how best to meet the financial needs of unemployed workers without discouraging the labour pool.
At the end of the day, it wasn't about regions; it wasn't even about the urban/rural divide. The single dominant factor in whether or not a laid off person was able to find a new job was education.
The more schooling a person had, the more likely she was to find a job within the first few months of a layoff. The lower the level of education, the more likely a person would become a repeat user of Employment Insurance.
Approximately 20 per cent of the workforce (mostly undereducated) accounted for the majority of Employment Insurance applications. They were five times as likely to apply multiple times for employment insurance system than those with a higher education.
So while provincial premiers weigh in heavily on alleged regional disparities, perhaps they could focus a little of their attention on why so many Canadians still drop out of school.
While they are at it, they might want to reform the patchwork of programs that currently characterize skills training and apprenticeship in Canada.
And perhaps they could fast-track an end to mobility barriers that keep unemployed workers from moving to new jobs in different parts of the country.
With education and training an exclusive provincial jurisdiction, premiers have done little to help undereducated workers who are desperately in need of government help.
It is motherhood today to talk about a one-size-fits-all Employment Insurance schemes. Multiple regional rules seem so complicated. But that isn't the problem.
The reality is that we don't have a one-size-fits-all country. If the unemployment rate in your community is 15 per cent, you have a harder time getting a job than if it is six per cent. The current insurance rules were designed to encourage workers to migrate to areas of lower unemployment instead of waiting at home for the situation to turn around. A uniform system stifles mobility.
Regional variances for Employment Insurance make good economic sense. The real tragedy is that repeat users are not getting the extra help they need to reintegrate into the work force. Add to that an onerous qualifying threshold, which should be fixed.
The original Liberal Cabinet debate revolved around what would happen to repeat users. We built in a five-year review, which required a new look at the legislation once the changed rules had been in practice a number of years.
The 1997 election intervened. Returned with a reduced majority, governing Liberals lost several ridings with a high proportion of seasonal workers.
Two high-profile Cabinet ministers, David Dingwall and Doug Young were among those defeated in a backlash against Liberal Employment Insurance changes. Those who survived were loath to reopen a can of worms that divided politically on regional lines.
Atlantic Canadians understand the need for seasonal adjustments in employment benefits in fisheries and forestry. After all, Mother Nature dictates the employment cycle in those industries.
But the same cycles exist in other work arenas. During boom times, construction workers can log hundreds of hours of overtime. By prorating those hours, when the economy flounders, they can be insured against no job.
In Ontario and Quebec, the combined effects of globalization and the information age have reduced the size of many industrial production lines permanently. Steel factories can produce twice the steel with half the workers they did two decades ago.
Doesn't it make sense to have a different solution for a fading steel town or a shuttered oil patch than a booming capital city, based on the reality of available jobs?
Come September, there is no easy fix to a problem that goes way beyond uniform eligibility rules.
Something tells me than an election will be sooner rather than later.
Sheila Copps is a former prime minister Jean Chrétien-era Cabinet minister.
The Hill Times
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Something tells me an election will be sooner rather than later
Come September, there is no easy fix to an Employment Insurance problem that goes way beyond uniform eligibility rules.
OTTAWA—History has a funny way of repeating itself. At the tail end of the last recession, I sat on a Cabinet committee established specifically to deal with the delicate issue of unemployment insurance reform.
We were facing a $42-billion annual deficit, our international financial reputation was in the dumpster and we had just been elected with a promise to turn things around.
The financial miracle could not have happened without tackling the sticky issue of employment insurance. Human resources minister Lloyd Axworthy was leading the charge and prime minister Jean Chrétien created a special committee of Cabinet to help him.
We spent months sifting through graphs and proposals, designed to tackle the tricky issue of how best to meet the financial needs of unemployed workers without discouraging the labour pool.
At the end of the day, it wasn't about regions; it wasn't even about the urban/rural divide. The single dominant factor in whether or not a laid off person was able to find a new job was education.
The more schooling a person had, the more likely she was to find a job within the first few months of a layoff. The lower the level of education, the more likely a person would become a repeat user of Employment Insurance.
Approximately 20 per cent of the workforce (mostly undereducated) accounted for the majority of Employment Insurance applications. They were five times as likely to apply multiple times for employment insurance system than those with a higher education.
So while provincial premiers weigh in heavily on alleged regional disparities, perhaps they could focus a little of their attention on why so many Canadians still drop out of school.
While they are at it, they might want to reform the patchwork of programs that currently characterize skills training and apprenticeship in Canada.
And perhaps they could fast-track an end to mobility barriers that keep unemployed workers from moving to new jobs in different parts of the country.
With education and training an exclusive provincial jurisdiction, premiers have done little to help undereducated workers who are desperately in need of government help.
It is motherhood today to talk about a one-size-fits-all Employment Insurance schemes. Multiple regional rules seem so complicated. But that isn't the problem.
The reality is that we don't have a one-size-fits-all country. If the unemployment rate in your community is 15 per cent, you have a harder time getting a job than if it is six per cent. The current insurance rules were designed to encourage workers to migrate to areas of lower unemployment instead of waiting at home for the situation to turn around. A uniform system stifles mobility.
Regional variances for Employment Insurance make good economic sense. The real tragedy is that repeat users are not getting the extra help they need to reintegrate into the work force. Add to that an onerous qualifying threshold, which should be fixed.
The original Liberal Cabinet debate revolved around what would happen to repeat users. We built in a five-year review, which required a new look at the legislation once the changed rules had been in practice a number of years.
The 1997 election intervened. Returned with a reduced majority, governing Liberals lost several ridings with a high proportion of seasonal workers.
Two high-profile Cabinet ministers, David Dingwall and Doug Young were among those defeated in a backlash against Liberal Employment Insurance changes. Those who survived were loath to reopen a can of worms that divided politically on regional lines.
Atlantic Canadians understand the need for seasonal adjustments in employment benefits in fisheries and forestry. After all, Mother Nature dictates the employment cycle in those industries.
But the same cycles exist in other work arenas. During boom times, construction workers can log hundreds of hours of overtime. By prorating those hours, when the economy flounders, they can be insured against no job.
In Ontario and Quebec, the combined effects of globalization and the information age have reduced the size of many industrial production lines permanently. Steel factories can produce twice the steel with half the workers they did two decades ago.
Doesn't it make sense to have a different solution for a fading steel town or a shuttered oil patch than a booming capital city, based on the reality of available jobs?
Come September, there is no easy fix to a problem that goes way beyond uniform eligibility rules.
Something tells me than an election will be sooner rather than later.
Sheila Copps is a former prime minister Jean Chrétien-era Cabinet minister.
The Hill Times
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