| Historical Information |
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| This post is about a previous Session of Parliament. Any legislation here that did not receive Royal Assent has been terminated. |
C-418 – An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (accessibility and other measures) – makes several fairly significant changes to the Employment Insurance Act.
The first thing Louise wants to do is increase the amount of insurable earnings by 40%. I’m fuzzy on the math to calculate what the amount would be for this year, but the Act sets the 2023 amount to $86,100. By contrast the current maximum for 2025 is $65,700.
Next, Louise wants to simplify the eligibility for EI. Right now you’re divided into two groups, “major attachment claimant” and “minor attachment claimant”, depending on how many insurable hours you’ve worked. If you’ve worked less than 600 hours you’re minor, more than that and you’re major. A minor claimant only qualifies for regular benefits while a major claimant can get things like maternity, parental, compassionate care, and family caregiver benefits. Louise wants to remove this two-tiered system, changing it so everyone qualifies for full benefits after working 420 hours or 14 hours per week for 12 weeks. This of course also makes it easier for part-time workers to qualify for EI. Louise also removes the one-week waiting period before you can receive EI.
The next change to the Employment Insurance Act makes it so any time spent on parental leave doesn’t count against you when determining if you qualify for EI. Normally the last 52 weeks are looked at for this, but any weeks spent on parental leave would increase this time period.
Louise also makes some significant increases to the amount of time you can claim EI for. The number of weeks you can get EI changes based on how many hours you worked in the last 52 weeks and the unemployment rate. The full range right now is between 14 and 45 weeks of EI. Someone that works a regular 40-hour week can get between 36 and 45 weeks of EI, while someone working a single part-time job (at ~20 hours a week) would qualify for 18 to 40 weeks. Under this Act the full range of benefits is increase to between 35 and 51 weeks. Everyone is able to qualify for the full 51 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate, with part-time workers (at a single job) starting at 35 weeks and full-time workers starting at 44.
Progress of C-418
C-418 is currently outside of the Order of Precedence.
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