The federal government’s revisions to employment insurance have seasonal workers, like Chris Schnare, concerned.
He works eight months a year at a fish plant in Sambro, Nova Scotia. The other four months, he collects employment insurance.
The EI changes are meant to encourage the unemployed to find work. But with chronic injuries to his knees and back, Schnare says picking up a job in the off-season is impossible.
“I’m 51. I can’t go nowhere’s else,” he tells Global National‘s Ross Lord.
“Who’s going to hire a 51-year-old man? And I don’t have a driver’s licence. So what would I do? Hitchhike to work in the wintertime? No, it wouldn’t work.”
The government says it will put strict definitions on what constitutes “suitable employment” and what the unemployed must do to find a job in order to get off EI.
The changes also mean Canadians will be treated differently depending on how often they dip into the system, or how long they are currently receiving benefits. In other words, those who choose to stay home and live off EI year after year will be directly affected.
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Human Resources Minister Diane Finley said the intent of changes is to get Canadians off EI and on to jobs for which they are qualified.
“We want to help Canadians who want to work get back to work,” she says.
Ottawa believes the new rules mean EI recipients will look harder for jobs, easing the pressure on employers to bring in foreign workers.
But like that old saying goes, good help is hard to find. Plant manager Donnie Hart says not everyone is cut out to work at his facility. “We had no luck. We had pizza drivers, truck drivers, and people who plant flowers, but no one who had fish-cutting skills.”
As a result, Hart says he was forced to look outside of Canada for help – and was successful. “We advertised in the Philippines and were able to find four guys who were fish-cutters.”
The employment insurance modifications also trigger a lingering resentment in communities like Sambro. Fishermen say they never had to rely on EI until large trawlers cleaned out the cod fishery – under the government’s watch.
The cod collapse triggered a trend in recent decades. People packed up and left the East Coast in favour of finding a new life in flourishing western Canada.
As for Schnare, some might wonder why he doesn’t take another job in the off-season, when he’s not at the fish plant. “There’s no way, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do a job like that,” Schnare says.
The new EI rules are expected to be in effect in early 2013.
Rebecca Lindell contributed to this report
Follow Ross on Twitter: @rlordglobal
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