NDP moves to protect Employment Insurance premiums

Always looking to better protect Canadian workers and their families, New Democrats will use their opposition day to call on the Harper government to protect worker and employer contributions from political interference in order to improve access to employment insurance.

The motion introduced by NDP Employment Insurance critic Robert Aubin (Trois-Rivières) will be debated in the House today.

“Currently, less than 4 out of 10 workers qualify for EI when they really need it. It’s imperative that we restore the program’s capacity to provide the services it was created for. Canadians shouldn’t have to pay for successive governments’ misappropriation of funds. The legality of the process doesn’t make it legitimate!” said Aubin.

“That, in the opinion of the House, employment insurance premiums paid by employers and workers must be used exclusively to finance benefits, as defined by the Employment Insurance Act, for unemployed workers and their families and, consequently, the government should: (a) protect workers and employers premiums from political interference; (b) improve programme accessibility to ensure that unemployed workers and their families can access it; and c) abandon its plan, as set out in Budget 2015, to set rates unilaterally, in order to maintain long-term balance in the fund while improving accessibility”