Budget aims to kill EI: Byrne

By Aaron Beswick

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

Gerry Byrne thinks last week’s federal budget could spell the end of Employment Insurance (EI).

The budget contains a provision that will turn management of EI over to an independent Crown corporation dubbed the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board (CFEIB).

The board will set EI rates and is intended to operate on a break-even basis. According to the federal government’s website, the new EI system was set up to “enhance the independence of premium rate setting and to ensure that EI premiums are used exclusively for the EI program.”

Byrne, MP for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, N.L., thinks the federal Conservatives have other motives.

“This provision to set up an arms length private company to handle the account says to me that they’re moving towards eliminating EI for seasonal workers,” said Byrne. “It would mean every seasonal worker in

Newfoundland and Labrador would be moving to Alberta. The forestry, fishing, tourist and service industries would shut down.”

He accuses the federal Conservatives of long considering the EI program as an “unnecessary subsidy to seasonal workers.”

While there were no references to eliminating EI for seasonal workers in the budget, Byrne predicted that the changes would become apparent once legislation is tabled in the House of Commons.

“The objective of the Conservatives is to turn EI into a stand-alone entity and to operate it under regular commercial insurance principles – not to treat it as a social safety net.”

Meanwhile, the Fish, Food and Allied Workers condemned the federal Conservatives for writing off its $55-billion debt to the country’s unemployed, while at the same time setting up tax shelters for the rich.

Union president Earle McCurdy said Ottawa has its priorities and values mixed up.

“It’s not the rich that need government to act for them, it’s everyone else,” he said.

McCurdy said this arms-length governance model is also an attempt by the government to divert attention from the real problems with the country’s EI program.

“For years successive federal governments have been dependent on the surpluses in the EI account to hand out tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy and to pay down the debt.

He also said just as troubling are the limits around how much EI premiums can be collected in any given year.

“We want EI changes that benefit workers and their families, not changes that make it easier for the government to write off its debt to working people and the unemployed.”

Some of the changes proposed by the FFAW include an increase in the benefit rate and reduced hours to qualify.

(Aaron Beswick is a journalist with Transcontinental Media’s Northern Pen newspaper and a contributor to the Sou’Wester.)