In Canada the unemployed have to ***WORK*** for their unemployment insurance

You guys in the US have it easy. In Canada, the unemployed have to WORK for their unemployment insurance. When you apply for unemployment get six weeks to look for work. After that time, you are expected to take ANY job even if it pays 70% of their last salary. An employment counselor acts like eHarmony Matching people looking for work with available jobs. McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, whatever job. Regardless if you were an engineer, autoworker or nurse. If you refuse, you get cut off of unemployment. PERIOD. What's wrong with Canada's working for your unemployment systems?

• You don't just magically acquire a job. Someone has to be willing to hire you. What if no one will hire you? What do you do then?

• If you've had any kind of decent job, working minimum wage at Starbucks of McDonalds is not going to pay even 70% of your previous salary.

• Wow, that sounds kind of draconian.

• R1 it is like eHarmony. The employment counselor sends you via email a list of jobs available, and you are expected to apply for them. Plus show proof you have applied. If you refuse, you get cut-off.

• OP, you are somewhat misrepresenting the situation because it depends on the circumstances and on whether or not the individual is able to do so. Btw, you do realize the same situation largely exists in the U.S, right? In fact it became an election issue last year when the Republicans tried to accuse Obama falsely of ending the work for welfare requirement.

• Does Canada have the same law as the US that only employers contribue to Unemployment Insurance?

• [quote]working minimum wage at Starbucks Starbucks doesn't pay minimum wage and they have healthy benefits.

• R6 that is the irony of the situation. Both the employers and the employees contribute to the fund. Yet the government is making it tougher to get unemployment.

• Do they still have that option for training where they pay part of your rent, phone bill while you're in school? I remember they had that.

• Jim Flaherty from the Canadian Government said "I was brought up in a certain way. There is no bad job, the only bad job is not having a job," "I drove a taxi, I refereed hockey. You do what you have to do to make a living."

• What if you physically can't do a job that requires you to stand for 8 hours? I have great respect for those who do physically demanding, low wage work. If US had competent unemployment counselors who really tried to find the needy suitable jobs then I would support this idea. I'm not very optimistic when it comes to governmental employees.

• R11 the government says you should file for disability through the company that laid you off, instead of accepting tax payers money.

• R4, To receive welfare and food stamps you must apply for a certain number of jobs per week. This usually just wastes employers time and resources, as the majority of the applicants have neither the skills nor the adequate grooming for most jobs.

• R13 the employment counselor knows that McDonald's has x-number of jobs available. They then email those McDonald's jobs to the unemployed and they are expected to apply for them. Plus show proof they did. If they refuse or don't provide proof, they are cut off. Period, no second chances.

• That's true in the U.S. also.

• So they get unemployment checks while they're working? Or is the point just to harass you to ignore your masters degree and take a Mcdonalds job?

• Say I was a manager who made $100,000 a year. They can't force me to take a job at McDonalds making $27,000 a year. But they could force me to take another management job at $70,000. There is no way unemployment benefits is even close to $70,000, so what's the problem?

• So they're not working for their unemployment insurance at all. OP. They're simply forced to take a low wage job, period. Very misleading post.

• r12 - Are you sure about that? Many companies don't have disability coverage for employees. My mother had an accident that has laid her up for two months and had to collect EI until she returned to work. Anyway, it seems like a lot of expense and bureaucracy considering that it wouldn't be very hard to apply for a job in such a way that you aren't likely to get it.

• R16 you get to keep collecting your unemployment (about 70%), while making money at McDonald's R17 if you don't take the job at McDonald's they terminate your unemployment benefits.

• R18 they are working for their unemployment. They get to keep about 70% of their unemployment, plus what they make at their new job. If they refuse they get cut off, so they get no money.

• [quote] Anyway, it seems like a lot of expense and bureaucracy considering that it wouldn't be very hard to apply for a job in such a way that you aren't likely to get it. In the government's mind if you have a PHD, you can qualify to work at McDonald's. To the government a job is a job.

• r17, the obvious problem is that they don't consider things like benefits packages, and contract vs. permanent employment. As r8 said, employees also contribute to the fund.

• r22 - Do you have any links to support that employment counsellors send highly educated or qualified people McDonald's type jobs that they are forced to apply for?

• Canada's housing bubble has popped. The same way the U.S changed it's bankruptcy laws just before the credit collapse, Canada is changing it's EI laws to prepare Canadians for a double-fucking over. Canada's mortgages are full-recourse. Canadians will lose their houses to forclosure and still owe the bank every penny they borrowed. Fully actionable, everything including pensions can be grabbed by the bank. Garnishment, tax-refund redirection to the bank, etc. So Canada already has the harshest set of rules forever binding them to pay back every penny. The Conservatives therefore can move to this big target, and get it in place before the collapse explodes Canadian unemployent. Canadians are so fucked it's not funny.

  Canadian, not in debt.

• r25, what are you basing the housing comment on, the Vancouver stats? (Genuinely asking-not in passive-aggro DL tone.) A lot of local EI workers ignore this rule, depending on the person's situation.

• I'd been hearing warnings about Canada's housing bubble all last year. Too bad, guys -- God Bless.

• Last quarter, the average price of a house in Canada increased $18,000. On average, Canadians have been cashing out on new equity to the tune of 40%; That's 40 cents in credit used (turned into debt, on their head) for every $1 in new home equity. So if the 40% holds up, Canadians spent as much on credit last quarter as they earned after taxes. So half our consumer economy is now powered by credit conversions from new home equity. What happens when prices simply ... freeze? What happens to the 50 % of all spending that's now just based on the house... rising ... in ... value. We're so fucked. Biggest bubble ever, the Americans werent this dependent on their bubble.

  r25

• Thank you r28. The thing that confuses me is the markets that are driving the bubble (Vancouver and Toronto) are no where near reflective of all of Canada. Obviously, they have a linked effect, but if the prices go down slowly enough, like Vancouver, could it be isolated?

• Canadians owe 150 to 154 dollars for every 100 they earn. Even the Government (through the Minister of Finance... the troll) and former Bank of Canada honcho have been telling people for years to get their debt under control. Yes, there is a day of reckoning coming, and the changes to the EI/UI system are but the tip of the iceberg. With the housing slowdown and the Canadian Revenue Agency doubling up on trying to catch tax evaders, it's going to get ugly. Especially since, as someone pointed out... you can't just walk away from you mortgage here in Canada. Wait until they increase personal income tax levels!

  Debt%20free%20Canadian%20renter

• The Harper Cons are making it tougher for all Canadians- well, except for the rich.

• Apples to oranges. Canada's unemployed are not black.

• I thought Canada had its house in order. I'm really surprised by some of the things I'm reading in this thread.

  American%2C%20Used%20To%20Problems

• When I lost my job at a Park Avenue dermatology office I didn't even bother to apply for unemployment. I was an RN and an NP and they would have been sending me on job interviews in the Bronx at underfunded nursing homes (warehouses), homeless shelters, hospitals for the indigent on Roosevelt Island, visiting nurse jobs that would send me to all 5 boroughs from whence I could pick cockroaches and bedbugs off of me on the subway ride home... No thank you....

• [quote]Both the employers and the employees contribute to the fund. Not true. It is a state by state situation. In NY State, ONLY the employer contributes, the workers do not contribute anything.

• Well, if you didn't want to go into nursing, why did you? Nobody forced you.

• R24, I've seen it constantly in Vegas where people are forced to apply for a job which doesn't match their skill level or abilities.

  Not%20R22

• R35 we were talking about Canada's Unemployment fund. In canada both the employer and employee contribute.

• [quote] Well, if you didn't want to go into nursing, why did you? I went into nursing. Not warehousing, not social work, not policing and not the exterminating business. When any of the positions offered are adequately funded, then nursing care can begin. But when public money is spent on Wall Street, weapons manufacturing, warmongering, bank bailouts and legalized ponzi schemes, you get underfunded warehousing of indigent people, unsolvable poverty and unsafe working conditions where the employees end up crippled. That's not what I went into.

• Waaahhh!!

  R39

• Wow a lot of gullible people on this thread. A quick Google search reveals OP to be a shit stirring troll. There is no requirement to "work" for your EI benefits, you just need to be looking for work and are capable of working (I.e not on vacation in Cuba for 6 weeks). More: The following eligibility criteria for independent workers and professionals for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits are based on insurable employment. You may be eligible for EI benefits if: you have accumulated enough insurable hours from insured employment to qualify for EI benefits, even if you have self-employment earnings; you meet the entitlement criteria for the type of EI benefits you applied to receive; you demonstrate that you are unemployed through no fault of your own for each week you claim EI benefits; you are actively looking for another job and are ready, willing, and capable of working each day (in the case of EI regular benefits); and your self-employment activities while you are receiving EI benefits are determined to be minor in extent. You are not entitled to EI benefits if you are working a full work week. If your main source of income is from operating a business on your own account, in partnership, or as a co-adventurer, and your self-employment activities are not considered to be minor in extent, you are considered to be working a full work week and therefore you are not unemployed. You are also considered to be working a full work week when you work in employment where you control your own hours of work. You are therefore not unemployed and you cannot receive EI benefits. Oh, and there never was a housing bubble in Canada, not even in Toronto or Vancouver. There have not nor will there ever be a U.S.-style forclosure crisis. Sales in those cities are down from last year? Yeah. Only because the prior year had record sales!

  http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/iwp/eligible.shtml

• R41 = Spokesperson for Government of Canada

• [quote]Starbucks doesn't pay minimum wage not much more. 8.43 per hour. Plus division of tips.

• R41 it has since changed to be six or seven weeks to find a job. If one of those isn't available after a certain period of time, the job seeker has to take any position they are qualified for and accept as much as a 30 per cent pay cut. That is now law in Canada.

• In Ontario, Canada the minimum wage is $10.00

• Are you saying you get to collect unemployment even after you go back to work? How can I get Canadian citizenship?

• R46 how it works is that you get to keep 'partial' benefits, in addition to the regular wage. But it has to be ANY job after seven weeks of unemployment. If you refuse to take any job after 7 weeks, you get cut off. So this saves the government money. Instead of paying 100% benefits, they are only paying 65% benefits. Because you are working at ANY JOB.

• R42=spending his EI money on gasoline soaked rags. Link please, R44. Show us exactly what this new law says. Otherwise you're either stupid or a lying sack of shit. For how long will I receive EI benefits? You may receive EI regular benefits for a period ranging from 14 to 45 weeks. The number of weeks you may receive benefits depends on the unemployment rate in your region and on the number of hours of insurable employment that you accumulated during your qualifying period, which is usually the last 52 weeks before the start date of your claim. I heard that I have to submit reports to receive EI benefits. What are these reports? After you apply for EI benefits, you must complete and submit EI reports to get the benefits you are entitled to receive. During the period your EI claim is active, you have to submit reports to Service Canada every two weeks that show you are still entitled to receive EI benefits. If I am entitled to receive benefits, what amount can I expect to receive? For most people, the basic rate for calculating benefits is 55% of the weekly average insurable earnings. Effective January 1, 2012, the maximum yearly insurable earnings is $45,900. This means that you can receive a maximum amount of $485 per week.

  http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/types/regular.shtml%23long

• Like slaving away at minimum wage for 40 hours a week gives a person time to interview. Fucked up.

• Here you go R48 Can't you google yourself?

  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2013/01/07/quebec-ei-unemployment-changes.html

• Commentary by R48 In talking about the modest proposed changes to Employment Insurance, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was insensitive and just totally mean to note “there are no bad jobs.” Knowing it to be true is one thing, but to actually say it? We should also remember that Jim Flaherty has an Ivy League education and has been very successful, so therefore whatever he says on the matter is wrong. What he should have said is, there are no bad jobs but there are all kinds of people who think a job in the service industry or doing manual labour is beneath their dignity. For instance, Peggy Nash, the NDP finance critic said, “If you are a computer software developer, will you be working at Tim Hortons? “If you are an unemployed teacher or nurse, will you be working in the agricultural sector picking fruit?” Peggy Nash should think twice about looking down her nose at people who work at Tim’s. It’s also obvious she has not met some of the computer software developers I know. If she had, she would know that working at Tim’s could only help the development of some of those especially awkward developers. Meanwhile, picking fruit might be the best education money can’t buy for a teacher charged with helping to form young minds. Who better to know the value of staying in school? In fact, you could argue the best possible professional development for many of us would be a week of picking apples. I doubt the rumours are true that some doctors have a God complex, but if by a miracle a doctor did think especially highly of him or herself, then emptying bedpans might cure them of their delusion. Working as a member of Parliament is an interesting and sometimes important job, but I can say without reservation there are days in the House of Commons when MPs would do more good for the country if they were working at Tim Hortons. That would be true public service. Liberal MP Marc Garneau called Flaherty’s comments insulting. We certainly don’t want to insult Garneau or any other astronauts for that matter, especially with the sharp drop in demand for astronauts in the current job market. That would be blaming the victim. But Mr. Garneau is missing the point. Obviously some jobs are unpleasant, unfulfilling or boring, though we could say that about most jobs at some point. The idea behind the EI changes is to encourage people to acquire skills so they no longer need to work in positions that don’t utilize all their abilities or keep them challenged. The problem with EI is, in many instances, it encourages the status quo. It’s an incentive for the chronically unemployed to stay in their comfort zone instead of pursuing training or new opportunities. After all, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say picking fruit is a “bad job” and then criticize the government for trying to encourage people to move away from a lifetime of picking fruit for three months a year and collecting EI for the other nine.

• But I thought that an individuals allotment of unemployment money came from that persons employer paying into that system right? And when that person goes on unemployment in the US they can receive those benefits until they run out. Is it the same way in Canada and if so then the Canadian government is keeping individuals from collecting money that was payed into the system for them FOR them. That's fucked up.

• Exactly R52 people are pissed. Because not only have employers put money into the fund, ALL Canadians have put money into the fund. So we as Canadians are being denied our own money we put in. But as Devil's advocate, there are some who have never been on unemployment, and pissed their tax dollars are going to people sitting on their ass collecting money.

• At 70%, most people are not going to be forced to accept a McDonald's job unless they start paying a lot higher salaries. Also, there is absolutely no housing bubble in Canada. People have been claiming that this supposed bubble is going to burst since the U.S housing collapse, but it's just a sensationalist claim to sell papers and magazines.

• Yes, R41 and R54, it's normal for your house to rise in value $6,000/month, per month, when your income is not rising. It's normal for the total value of outstanding mortgages to rise 300 billion while your banks see no rise, or in some cases a reduction, of the total value of mortgages on their books. It's totally normal to see your own housing market explode in value following a worldwide economic collapse and subsequent depression. When your economy is export-based and dependent on American consumption levels.

  r25, ashamed of my people

• U.S. unemployment insurance requires both that you look for work and report where you've applied with the employers full contact info or at least the info you used to apply. There is a minimum number you must apply for each week. If you do not do this you are subject to losing your benefits. If you should find a job and your unemployment claim has not expired you must report the hours worked and what you were paid. If the amount paid is more than your weekly claim, you do not get any money from unemployment for that week. If the money is less they subtract what you did make and you get the difference. It doesn't seem all that different from the Canadian system, except here I think just the employers pay for it.

• If the United States wants to give us a single payer national healthcare system like Canada, then maybe adopting their unemployment insurance requirements would be reasonable. However, the United States already has a piss poor safety net and people like idiot OP focus on the small problems instead of the real issues.

• I can tell you one damn thing that would happen in a hurry, the damn minimum wage would go up faster that you can say, "impeached". And guess what else would thankfully be finally forced up: The $2.25/ HOUR restaurants are STILL allowed to pay you if you have income in the form of tips. That motherfucker is a disgrace to this country.

  Velma, waitress at Waffle House, BITCH!

• r55, The value of your home isn't directly correlated with your income. It's decided by the market value in your neighbourhood, which can rise rapidly depending on the hotness of the city market, your particular location, etc. My mother is on a fixed income plus investments, and her house is valued much higher than her income because she's been there forever. For now, her investments cover the rise in related property taxes. I also don't think it's odd that the housing market would continue to rise here, especially given what was driving the rise, a)some insulation from bank collapse, thanks to Liberals denying bank mergers, and b)growth being driven by people in Toronto and Vancouver (largely) who were not majorly effected by the crisis.

• [quote]However, the United States already has a piss poor safety net Most who say this do not understand the full extent of the American safety net.

• "The value of your home isn't directly correlated with your income" Yes, it is. That's why house prices track with inflation/deflation, unless your government is running a bubble. Your income is your ability to repay a mortgage. Your income against current interest rates/repayment requirements determines the house you can afford. No rise in average income, while the average home price doubles? You have a catastrophe around the corner, and it occurs the moment the average home price drops. That's when Canadians get instantly cut off from any new credit, since the collateral basis for the wild credit increases they've been experiencing has been houses that magically grow $6,000 in new equity in a single month. Canadians walked into this after watching what it did to the Americans. They'll be not a stitch of international sympathy when our economy implodes.

• R29: I missed your question, sorry. The big metro's slip first because of their size and demographic mix. The sales volume is higher because the population is younger, more professional and more socially mobile. Where houses move by the hour in most areas, they move by the second in the big cities, so all the cracks in your overall market are going to become obvious there, first. As you've seen everywhere else a bubble has popped, the big cities hold up best overall because they've got the strongest built-in supports for the price of a house; Big incomes and the endless arrivals of university grads. So if you live and own in either, you'll hurt first but least. Big cities don't drive bubbles. The wildly increased consumer spending of the almost middle class drives it. The core of the population mindlessly converting 100 g in new home equity into 40 g in debt on their heads, and doing it spending the cash at retail which just gets the exact same people bubble jobs making the shit being sold, or selling it ... that's your catastrophe. They lose their pretend jobs when the pretend money they were spending from a pretend bank all goes away at the same time. Because it was from the same thing, which was the government they voted in depositing thousands into their magical houses every month for them to spend.

  outraged ndp voter

• [quote]Most who say this do not understand the full extent of the American safety net. Only the uber-rich have a safety net. Everybody else gets scraps.

• The unemployed will either get a hand finding work or a kick in the pants to get moving in their job search thanks to Employment Insurance (EI) changes now in effect. Among the changes that took effect Sunday is a new Job Alerts system that sends e-mails to subscribers twice a day about jobs that match their skills. "The new Job Alerts system is an important part of our government's plan to better connect Canadians with available jobs in their area," Human Resources Minister Diane Finley said in a statement. Officials say the new system is easier to use than the system it replaced. It will also highlight alternative job vacancies in fields related to a job-seeker's preferred type of work. For EI claimants who are less motivated to seek work, the new system also specifies that a "reasonable job search" includes networking, meeting with potential employers, and preparing resumes or cover letters. Anyone getting EI benefits risks losing those payments if they don't keep track of their job search and provide those records to bureaucrats who check up on them. The new system also puts the screws to those who've used EI at least three times for a total of 60 weeks in five years. Such "frequent users" will get six weeks to look for work in their field. After that, they'll have to take a job even if it pays at least 70% of their last salary. Claimants will no longer qualify for EI if they refuse a job within a one-hour radius of their home, even if the job pays 30 per cent less than their previous employment. Federal officials estimate the new system will save taxpayers $33 million over the next year.

• If you lose your job, you shouldn’t have to take work that is beneath you. You shouldn’t have to accept a job that offers you less pay or worse working conditions. If you find yourself unemployed in your home region, you shouldn’t have to move away to find work. You should be free to make all of those choices. But the rest of us — we taxpayers and Employment Insurance (EI) premium payers — should be under no obligation to subsidize your decisions through our taxes and payroll deductions. If you don’t want to take just any old job that comes along, if you don’t want to demean yourself with a position that doesn’t match your training or if you don’t want to move, fine. That’s your choice. Just don’t expect the rest of us to pay to keep you in your preferred lifestyle. In the budget bill currently before Parliament, the Conservative government is seeking to change EI rules so claimants will be forced to accept work more readily and get off EI sooner. It’s about time. Employment Insurance is a lot of things, but an insurance plan to encourage employment it is not. For one thing, the premiums aren’t based on the risk of making a claim. Young drivers pay higher auto insurance premiums because they are much more likely to get in an accident. Yet Canadians in high-unemployment industries and high-unemployment regions make no higher EI contributions than those who live where they are never likely to be without work. Indeed, those most likely to make EI claims will make far lower lifetime contributions than those who are unlikely ever to claim. That makes EI a welfare program underwritten by a tax on employment, rather than an insurance plan. But the question is why should hard-working Canadians be compelled to subsidize anyone who refuses to move or turns down locally available work? In 2009, Toronto’s C.D. Howe Institute released a long-term study of EI that showed the generosity of the program had doomed regions such as Quebec and Atlantic Canada to perpetual underperformance, economically. Because benefits were rich enough to live on (and lasted up to 40 weeks a year!), too many workers were unwilling to put in overtime or work extra weeks, thus reducing industrial productivity in regions with high EI use. So it is hardly mean of the Government to try to force more EI claimants to get to work. It’s only fair to taxpayers.

• [quote]But as Devil's advocate, there are some who have never been on unemployment, and pissed their tax dollars are going to people sitting on their ass collecting money. But r53 I thought you just confirmed that the money that gets doled out as unemployment money comes from employers that pay into the system and in some cases workers that pay into the system as well. So those people who never have collected UI have nothing to be upset about and need to be educated. Tax money from the general fund is not going out as pay to the unemployed?

  r52

• Clinton tried it. Blacks went nuts calling it slavery. The idea was dropped.

• R67 Clinton needed the black vote to get elected. Here in Canada it is the older white demo that is getting this Conservative Government elected.

• r51 posted an opinion piece by former Harper Con MP and shit-stain Monte Solberg.

• In Britain, the disabled, yes those medically those declared unfit for work, now have to work for their measley £70 a week. People have committed suicide, died from terminal cancer during there 'workfare' placements, which is usually menial manual labour. The British government is enforcing the same ideology towards the unemployed and disabled as Nazi party.

• No OP, this never happened. No one who had a real job is working at Starbucks or McDonald's to get unemployment. Even at a 70% reduction those companies could only afford people who had already been working for minimum wage, not people with real salaries. But you already know that and are just trolling.

• R71 read R50

• [quote]Your income is your ability to repay a mortgage. Your income against current interest rates/repayment requirements determines the house you can afford. But if you've locked in terms in a sensible way (including fixed rate), that shouldn't be a problem, should it? Maybe I'm just assuming people would be conservative in using income projections.The other concern would be how cc debt fits in, which might be an issue. I've never been a home owner, but I always assume people budget layers of safety, especially consumer spending habits into a long term financial commitment. I'm not saying it's not a change, people will have to be careful, but I'm not getting the catastrophic element-I don't see it as a default domino.

• Yes, I read it r72, and it exactly proves my point. For the majority of the population with real jobs, even a 30% reduction in salary will not equal a required job at McDonald's. Never happened. But thanks for playing.

• The EI program is a huge fucking scam. It runs a huge surplus that the government raids for general revenues, all the while making it harder to collect benefits.

• R74 but it is happening now, it is happening.

• R74 the article states Claimants will no longer qualify for Employment Insurance if they refuse a job within a one-hour radius of their home, even if the job pays 30 per cent less than their previous employment.

• Margaret van Nooten, a social rights worker for Project Genesis in Côte-des-Neiges, is concerned the changes will require the people she helps to take work that won't fit their lifestyle. "I really feel that people will be quite hard hit by these changes," she said. "People have six weeks of looking for employment in their field ... After that, there could be monitoring as to their job search efforts without them being able to specify, 'Well, I haven't taken this particular job because it's a pay reduction for me or because it would take almost two hours to get there or I wouldn't be able to be home in time to make supper for my children.'"

• P.E.I. single mother without car loses EI benefits for being unwilling to work in Charlottetown Marlene Giersdorf, single mother of a nine-year-old from Montague, P.E.I., is the first person known to be cut off Employment Insurance under a change of rules. As of this month, some recipients will lose benefits unless they are willing to work for 70% of their previous wage, commute for an hour or more and accept any job meeting those conditions. Ms. Giersdorf, 30, was recently told she was being cut off because of “an unwillingness to change your job demands,” and spent Monday morning protesting outside the city’s Service Canada building. A few months ago, she left a job at a nursing home with a doctor’s note citing stress from 60-hour work weeks. She said she has applied for many jobs in Montague, population just over 5,000, but hasn’t yet been able to find work. See link below

  http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/01/14/p-e-i-single-mother-without-car-loses-ei-benefits-for-being-unwilling-to-work-in-charlottetown/