C-215 – An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (illness, injury or quarantine) – is a nice, simple Bill. It would increase the amount of time someone can claim Employment Insurance due to illness, injury or quarantine from 15 weeks to 52.
Second Reading
C-215 passed its Second Reading vote 173 in favour and 151 against.
The Liberals are against C-215 as they’re already in the process of increasing these benefits to 26 weeks. They say that going to 52 weeks would double the cost of the increase (from $1b to $2b), and are concerned it would result in employers offering less benefits to employees that aren’t expected to return to work for a prolonged period of time. They also point out that only a third of Canadians that use EI end up using the full 15 weeks, so an increase is definitely needed but 52 weeks might be excessive.
The Bloc had introduced a similar Bill last session (would have increased to 50 weeks instead of 52) but Bills like this require Royal Recommendation as they increase government spending and the Bloc was never able to get it, so the Bill died. So of course they support C-215 as another chance to get the changes they wanted.
The NDP also introduced a Bill that would increase EI to 50 weeks during the last session, so of course they support C-215 as well.
Royal Recommendation
As we’ve seen before anything that increases EI qualifications requires more government spending, and as such needs a Royal Recommendation. C-215 was unable to get this before going up for its Third Reading and as such has failed.
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