Overview of Recommendations
In Spring 2010, the Mowat Centre convened the Employment Insurance Task Force.
The Task Force’s mandate was to review the current Employment Insurance (EI) system, consult about its relevance to contemporary realities, and make recommendations about improving Canada’s support system for the unemployed.
At the outset, we committed that any recommendations would be evidence-based and principled. We also committed that this process would be transparent, non-partisan, and incorporate a diversity of perspectives.
To this end, we held extensive consultations with employers, workers, and civil society. We commissioned research from Canada’s top experts. We hosted a series of technical consultations to vet our proposals. Meanwhile, we reached out to current and former government officials, inviting their comments and keeping them informed of our progress. Finally, using the best data available, we costed our proposals so that Canadians and governments can understand the fiscal implications of our recommendations.
Based on our research and consultation, we propose a blueprint for a strengthened national program to support the unemployed. Our recommendations focus on the architecture of support for the unemployed and the principles that should drive reform. Our goal is to improve the overall design of the system.
Our 18 recommendations are organized around four themes: a nationally standardized system, active employment measures (i.e. training), special benefits, and financing and management. We recommend transformational changes, as well as smaller changes that address long-standing irritants in the EI system.
Based on the Task Force’s research and consultations, we recommend the following measures:
A Nationally Standardized Support System for the Unemployed
1. Introduce a single national entrance requirement for all workers across Canada.
2. Introduce a single national benefit duration range.
3. Introduce a single national weekly benefit formula.
4. Eliminate the higher entrance requirement for new entrants and re-entrants to the workforce.
5. Create a new system of temporary unemployment assistance outside the EI program.
6. Test wage insurance for long-tenured workers and eliminate provisions whereby severance pay can displace EI benefits.
7. Modify benefits in response to economic conditions (e.g. expand work-sharing during recessions).
8. Establish a transparent process for testing changes to the EI program.
9. Treat temporary foreign workers fairly.
10. Modify the low income family supplement to track growth in maximum insurable earnings.
11. Transition the delivery of benefits for self-employed fishers out of EI.
Changes to Active Employment Measures
12. Fund all training and active employment measures through a general revenue-funded transfer to provinces.
13. Enhance the relevance and effectiveness of the Forum of Labour Market Ministers.
14. Enable individuals to pursue skills development (such as high school and post-secondary education) while receiving EI benefits.
Changes to Special Benefits
16. Provide parental benefit recipients with a choice between higher benefits over a shorter period or lower benefits over a longer period.
17. Remove the two-week waiting period for special benefits.
18. Test a change to sickness benefits to support labour market participation of persons with disabilities.
Changes to EI Financing & Management
19. Strengthen and broaden the authority of the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board (CEIFB).
For more information, read Making It Work: Final Recommendations of the Mowat Centre Employment Insurance Task Force , or download the summary here .
