EI administrative malfunction: an urgent need for simplicity

A couple of weeks ago, Statistics Canada signalled that last November we had witnessed the lowest number of employment insurance recipients in 25 years. Yet, at the same time, thousands of Canadians are experiencing waits that are almost unheard of in the annals of EI history. What explains this paradox? Among the proximate causes is a backlog generated by COVID’s considerable impact. The system, incapable of processing the hundreds of thousands of applications made all at once, was quickly replaced by the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in 2020. The return of claimants to employment insurance was itself eased by the adoption of “administrative flexibilities” that ensured the program was not paralyzed by the sudden influx of large numbers back into EI. Then, in the last budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made the fateful decision to end those flexibilities in September 2022 with the notion that it was time to turn the page on pandemic measures. This was a misguided decision. What the finance minister no doubt failed to appreciate (but must have been pretty clear to the ministers responsible for EI and Service Canada) is that the EI program was already struggling to keep its head above water. By not maintaining simplified rules, the federal government has unwittingly helped to create the mess we are in now. Pierre Laliberté is the commissioner representing workers at the Canada Employment Insurance Commission. Photograph courtesy of Pierre Laliberté Thanks to the breakdown of EI in March 2020 and the (successful) Dunkirk-like operation to replace it with the CERB, the income support program went through three quick but broad changes in rules, affecting hundreds of thousands of claimants. Meanwhile, the EI call centres and processing staff underwent a massive turnover: close to half of current employees have been hired since the COVID. Those new staff had to learn shifting rule changes with the consequences any reasonable person could anticipate. The EI program is complex. Training a competent EI employee takes months. The scarcity of experienced staff has a cost, and that cost is currently being paid by the thousands of unfortunate claimants left out to dry. As it so happens, in 2021, the government also started discussions to reform the EI program. One of the few consensus findings from those consultations was that the EI program was far too complicated for its own good: complex for claimants, complex for employers, and complex to administer. Nearly all stakeholders advocated for simplification. To illustrate that complexity, there are 108 ways to classify earnings. Some earnings are insurable, some not. A small business employer will have to pore over a 50-pages long “guide” to decipher how to report their earnings properly. The administrative flexibilities which ended last September addressed precisely some of those issues: by simplifying the treatment of separation payments, records of employment, and providing a universal entry requirement for all Canadian workers. As such, they allowed the EI program to process automatically (that is, without requiring an EI agent’s intervention) twice as many claims as was possible without them. As a result, despite very high levels of claim intake in 2021, the EI program operated rather smoothly. Now it is struggling. Every day my office hears from Canadians who are lost in the middle of the bureaucratic maze, not knowing when their benefits will be paid. Many wait for months. In desperation, agents have been said to direct claimants to food banks and relatives. An unacceptable situation. The federal government has recognized this, in part, in the fall economic statement, when it allocated additional funds to EI administration. But this necessary infusion of resources will take time to work its effects. Indeed, Employment and Social Development Canada has drafted a three-year plan to get back to normal. Clearly, more is needed, and fast. Bringing back the measures terminated last fall would give us a fighting chance and help steer the resources where they are needed right now. If the government was able to replace EI in less than two weeks in 2020, surely it can reinstate in proper time administrative rules that would simplify life for all concerned and speed up service. Pierre Laliberté is the commissioner representing workers at the Canada Employment Insurance Commission. The Hill Times

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EI administrative malfunction: an urgent need for simplicity

Canada's employment insurance program is far too complicated for claimants and employers, and far too complex to administer.

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