Ignatieff Liberals don’t know what they stand for on Employment Insurance

Back in June, the Ignatieff Liberals said Employment Insurance reform was their top priority.

But by September, Ignatieff said an immediate election was his top priority, and the unemployed would have to wait.

But now, after spending Thanksgiving visiting with the homeless, Ignatieff is back to saying that inadequate EI is a “serious issue”:

"In Toronto, at the food bank I was at yesterday, a lot of people are using the food bank because they've run out of their EI," he said, pointing to a 17 per cent increase in food bank use in that city last year. "That's a serious issue." – Michael Ignatieff, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, 12 October 2009

Really?

While Michael Ignatieff was fighting fires in his own caucus, Jack Layton’s New Democrats were fighting to get 20 extra weeks of EI for the unemployed.

How did the Ignatieff Liberals respond to C-50, the bill that will provide $1 billion in new assistance for 190,000 unemployed? Every one of Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal MPs voted against it. (House of Commons Journals, Division No. 105, 29 September 2009)

Not only are the Liberals trying to defeat the additional EI benefits, Ignatieff spent the Thanksgiving weekend calling them “bad measures.” - CBC Radio’s The House, 10 October 2009.

So who can the unemployed count on for real help when they need it? Not Michael Ignateff’s Liberals. They just don’t know what they stand for anymore.