by Quentin Casey

The future of a near-completed federal pilot project involving employment insurance is stirring debate between workers, politicians and labour leaders who want the program to continue, and those who call it a waste of taxpayers’ dollars.

At a cost of $100-million a year, the two-year project provides a five-week extension in EI benefits to workers in areas with unemployment above 10%. The program is under review and scheduled to end on June 4. There has been no indication from the government if it will be extended, implemented or scrapped.

“That would certainly be a real set back,” said Earle McCurdy, president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union in Newfoundland and Labrador. “The impact will be really felt in rural areas where opportunities are primarily limited to seasonal work.”

The program is aimed to help 100,000 so-called “gappers” — workers whose benefits do not fully cover their time without work. In many cases that involves seasonal workers who rely on EI to get through to the next season.

McCurdy represents about 8,000 plant workers who will be affected by the program’s end. Many of those workers are employed for only 14 weeks during the late spring snowcrab fishery. According to McCurdy, that period of work only provides about 32 weeks of EI coverage for the rest of the year, leaving a gap of five or six weeks with no pay.

With no other employment available in those communities, seasonal workers must go without and survive on their approximately $15,000 income or collect social assistance.

“The experiment in our view was very successful and really helped people. It eased the hardship people experience at certain times of the year,” McCurdy said. “I don’t know what a pilot project has to do to be deemed successful, but we certainly felt this one was. It would be very disappointing to lose.”

Some, however, welcome the project’s end.

“This program should not be renewed…. There is absolutely no excuse for enriching further a program that pays people not to work,” said Brian Lee Crowley, president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a think-tank based in Halifax.

“It essentially subsidizes seasonal work by allowing people … to hang around at the taxpayers’ expense, waiting for the next season to roll around. It discourages people from acquiring the skills that would make them more valuable in the labour force and it has terribly damaged rural communities, their economy and workers.”

Crowley argues there is no reason for the government to support people in areas of little employment when other areas scream out for labour.

“It’s an indictment of the political system in Canada when a few constituencies and a few voters can essentially blackmail our politicians into enriching social benefits so they don’t have to work when there’s work available,” he said.

But proponents of the program do not see it that way.

“It’s not just a matter of finding other work,” said Richard Brown, a Liberal MLA in Prince Edward Island who is pushing his province to press the federal government to make the program permanent. “Our [work seasons] are short but they’re vital to our economy.”

Brown said many P.E.I. communities depend on the short seasons of fishing and tourism that last at most 20 weeks.

“[Some] might say, ‘Move to Alberta.’ Well, if everybody moved to Alberta our seasonal economy would not function,” he said. “That’s not an option for a lot of people with families, who are rooted in the community.”

For Brown, the pilot project is “vital” for seeing workers through to their next season of work.

The situation is the same in Kirkland Lake in northern Ontario where land-based industries such as forestry do not always follow a steady cycle.

Charlie Angus, the Member of Parliament for the area, said he is waiting anxiously for the government’s decision. “We are very concerned in our region,” he said.

Recent mill closures and the seasonal nature of local industry make the program essential, said Angus. “When you have an industry in flux, like forestry, there has to be more flexibility for families.”

Crowley does not find those arguments convincing.

“If they want to choose to remain in communities where there’s little work, God bless them,” he said. “But don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize that decision.”

According to Crowley, the situation is unfair to people who work year round.

“The message we give to them is that they’re chumps because [the government] will continue to take EI premiums and pay them to people who are working for just a few weeks a year,” he said.

“I think it’s just a shocking and unacceptable system.”

Angus is fearful of what will happen without the five-week extension. “Our guys are going to slip through the cracks,” he said.

Neil Cohen, director of the Community Unemployed Help Centre in Winnipeg, agrees.

The non-profit group specializes in helping workers on EI. Mr. Cohen said 30% of EI users exhaust their benefits. “That tells us the benefit duration period isn’t sufficient to bridge people to other employment,” he said.

“The message [often] is if there’s not enough work … go somewhere else,” Cohen said. “Government and industry might like that approach because it serves as a social cattle prod.”

But Crowley does not find those arguments convincing.

“If they want to choose to remain in communities where there’s little work, God bless them,” he said. “But don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize that decision.”

According to Crowley, the situation is unfair to people who work year round.

“The message we give to them is that they’re chumps because [the government] will continue to take EI premiums and pay them to people who are working for just a few weeks a year,” he said.

“I think it’s just a shocking and unacceptable system.”