Following are the notes on which I based presentations to the Senate National Finance Committee on June 6 and the House of Commons Finance Committee on May 29. They summarize key CLC concerns with the Budget Implementation Bill. Lack of Consultation The significant changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) program
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Accidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – May 7, 2012
Monday, May 7 saw another day largely dominated by debate on the Cons’ omnibus budget bill. The Big Issue Plenty of MPs rightly focused on the Cons’ move to combine so many disparate types of legislation into a single behemoth of a bill. Don Davies remembered his first instruction as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – T.C. Norris points out that one of the most important developing themes in economic research is the recognition that reductions in employment insurance benefits only force job-seekers into damaging situations rather than creating economic benefits. But as we all know, mere facts won’t
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michael Harris rightly tears into the Cons for turning our federal government into Versailles on the Ottawa: The Harper government has more than a touch of Queen Nancy. It has already morphed into Versailles on the Ottawa. The facts, and the rules, are being
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Julian Beltrame reports on the Cons’ concerted efforts to add to corporate bottom lines by attacking working Canadians: One of the measures is so sneaky, says NDP MP Pat Martin, nobody seemed to notice the line buried deep in the 452-page Bill C-38
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Economics of EI “Reform”
Changes to the EI rules announced by the government today are not rooted in any lengthy policy rationale. But Minister Finley and and the media release spoke to the need to “strengthen work incentives.” This conjures up images of unemployed workers sitting around and spurning job offers amidst growing labour
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Key EI Data No Longer Available
As Heather Scoffield of Canadian Press reports here, Statistics Canada are no longer publishing key EI data because HRSDC have stopped providing it. Data on the dollar value of EI regular benefits are not published in the monthly Statscan release, but were available each month on CANSIM… until March of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Shrinking EI
Statistics Canada reported today that 2,500 fewer Canadians received Employment Insurance (EI) benefits in March. In total, only 549,400 out of 1,356,200 officially unemployed workers got benefits. The context for proposals to clamp down on EI is that only 40% of unemployed Canadians currently receive benefits. The Harper government wants to
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: HRSDC Funded Research Contradicts Key Argument For New EI Policy
According to today’s Globe, the government says that the major target of pending changes to EI is frequent claimants, who are disproportionately to be found in the high unemployment regions. This focus seems to reflect the common belief that supposedly “overgenerous” EI benefits stop some people from moving from high
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Tightening the Screws on the Unemployed
The significant changes to the Employment Insurance (EI) program which are to be quickly implemented through Budget 2012 with very little consultation have not received enough critical attention. First, a word on what is not in the Budget. It is disappointing, to say the least, that the government is failing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Gerald Caplan looks at the principled leadership which Stephen Harper embarrassingly made into an attack on the NDP as an example what Canada desperately needs now: Repeating that war settles nothing, Mr. Woodsworth declared: “I rejoice that it is possible to say these
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On short-sightedness
Others have already drawn parallels between the Cons’ plan to require Employment Insurance recipients to accept whatever low-paying temporary work might be available as a condition of receiving the benefits they’ve paid into, and other attacks on individual workers such as workfare and forced relocation. But let’s take a closer
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Tightening up EI access #nlpoli #cdnpoli
People drawing unemployment insurance in the Atlantic provinces might be in for a new way of life in the near future, if changes to the Employment Insurance system turn out as described by the National Post on Wednesday: What we will be doing is making people aware there’s hiring going
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Brian-Michel calculates the expected outcome of the 2011 election minus the Robocon election fraud based on Anke Kessler’s data. Alison, thwap and Saskboy all rightly lament that a government claiming that a majority entitles it to treat Canada as a helpless plaything may
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Below 40% of the Unemployed Get EI
Statistics Canada reported today that 12,400 more Canadians received Employment Insurance (EI) regular benefits in January. The increase in recipients reflected higher unemployment. Indeed, the proportion of jobless workers receiving benefits remained 39% (i.e. 561,060 beneficiaries out of 1,421,200 officially unemployed Canadians.) Only 28% of unemployed Ontarians received EI benefits
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Drummond Misdiagnoses Ontario’s Economy
The Harvard International Review has posted an interview with Don Drummond. I have posted the following response: It is good Drummond confesses that his free-market policy prescriptions failed to improve productivity, but old habits apparently die hard: “We have an Employment Insurance scheme that basically dissuades people from going where
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: EI Shrank by 100,000 in 2011
Statistics Canada reported today that the number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance rose by 4,230 in December, a month in which unemployment rose by 6,100. The proportion of unemployed workers receiving benefits remained below 39% (i.e. 544,720 beneficiaries out of 1.4 million unemployed). Although December saw relatively little change in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Evidence vs. Ivison
If the National Post’s John Ivison wanted to agitate this blog’s authors, he could not have done much better than last week’s commentary on the census numbers. It was printed on the front page under the headline “Jobs in the West, jobless in the East; EI impeding labour mobility.” To
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Job Shortages? What Shortages?
Sigh. Here we go again. More evidence-free corporate policy advocacy. The Chamber of Commerce put out a report today – actually I can’t find much in the way of background research on their web site – which points with alarm to labour and skills shortages, and calls for a less
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Mike Ward nicely describes the “Orwellian reverie” being used by the Cons to try to manipulate the public into acceding to the every wish of the oil sector: In what other world could the delivery of jobs, profits and unrefined oil to a
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