Penalising the Unemployed

The Conservatives under Prime Minister Steven Harper are running the show like a dictatorial regime which never hesitates when it comes to shutting down adequate debate on important national issues such as the EI or F35 procurement. As usual, they’re again after the ‘short term gain,’ yet they don’t realise the long term financial pain later on.
Next year, the regime is implementing the new EI (Employment Insurance) rules and is setting aside $21 million for overhauling the system.

image source: google

Whether the overhaul would guarantee any financial security to the vulnerable jobless workers is far from clarity.
Apparently, the following three categories are aimed at remedying the crisis created by the unemployed including the "cheaters and the lazy workers":

Tier 1: Long-tenured workers who have paid into the EI program for seven of the past 10 years, and over the last five years have collected regular or fishing benefits for 35 weeks. These workers will be allowed to restrict their job hunt to positions that pay 90 per cent of their previous earnings and are in the same occupation. After 18 weeks, however, they will be expected to accept jobs that pay 80 per cent of their previous salary in the same field.
Tier 2: (Occasional) Frequent claimants are those who have had three or more claims (regular or fishing) for a total of more than 60 weeks in the past five years. Those out of work that fall between the definitions of long-tenured and frequent, can spend 18 weeks looking for a job in their "similar" occupation at 80 per cent of previous pay. After 18 weeks, those recipients will be expected to take any work that pays at least 70 per cent of earnings. Fifty eight percent of claimants are occasional claimants.
Tier 3: (Frequent) Occasional claimants are all other claimants, who have limited experience in being unemployed .Frequent EI users will be defined as someone who has made three or more regular or fishing claims and collected 60 or more weeks of benefits in the past five years. This category currently makes up 17 per cent of all EI claimants - mainly in Atlantic Canada. These recipients will only have six weeks to find a job in a "similar occupation" at least 80 per cent of pay.

Introducing new rules with the intention of going after the repeat claimants indiscriminately for no fault of theirs is certainly frustrating. Approximately 17 per cent of EI claimants are considered frequent users, while 58 per cent fall under the occasional category and 25 per cent fall under the long-tenured category.

In fact, the bias against the unfortunate ones is not only contemptuous but is unethical too, as the new 70 percent rule would bring more misery to the jobless Canadians. If you lose your job, you must be willing to accept a wage cut of up to 30 percent to qualify for EI benefit. But upon losing that job, you are getting another 30 percent wage decrease and the unfair trend would continue.

Under the proposed changes, benefit collection history of the claimant would be a determining factor to decide the amount and duration of EI benefits. Assessment would be based on evidence of job search activities, the intensity and frequency of the claimant’s efforts and the type of work he/she searches on daily basis.
There is a fear factor that new rules may further jeopardize the economic security of communities earning their living from seasonal industries. A seasonal worker in the fishery, tourism, forestry or agriculture won’t be allowed anymore to turn down the available position. Those looking for work must be willing to work at a job that is within one hour of commuting distance from their home, or longer in communities where longer commuting times are the norm. Under the new rules the internet access will be needed to receive the daily job posting emails.
It’s important that some serious steps are taken to persuade the repeaters to look seriously for gainful employment. Since some people make a career out of staying on EI for a prolonged period of time; new rules won’t mean much to them unless there is effective counselling to help them out of the chronic addiction.
Scapegoating the unemployed Canadians might give some political mileage to the Conservatives, yet the plight of common man won’t change much unless the abusers find no more loop holes for bilking money out of the system. Most importantly, some drastic economic measures have to be in place to bring back the outsourced work from foreign lands. Surely, more employment opportunities will ease the financial strain on the EI program.
Reforming the EI system to favour the jobless is a long way to go yet, and there is a lot of catching up to do indeed.
Question remains if recession is the perfect timing for gearing up against the unemployed.

The Flawed Refugee Bill

In keeping with its humanitarian traditions and international obligations, Canada offers protection to the vulnerable people of various ethnic backgrounds from all troubled parts of the world. Canada is well known to handle the emerging refugee situations; works closely with the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissions for Refugees) and enjoys recognition around the world for its leadership in resettling asylum seekers who need protection. It takes part in preventing “refugee smuggling scenarios” from further developing. Subject to tough scrutiny, refugee-protection is available here to claimants who fear persecution, a risk to their life or a risk of cruel treatment if they are deported back to their home countries.

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Canadian Bill C-31 is an omnibus bill that is actually aimed at amending the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act, and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act.

With regard to “protecting Canada’s immigration system act,” strong criticism came from the civil society, the Canadian council for refugees, the refugee forum, the Canadian association of refugee lawyers, the Canadian civil liberties association, amnesty international.

Dealing with people seeking asylum in Canada has become questionable as sections 24 and 25 of Bill C-31 modify the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in such a way that asylum claimants will be presumed as bogus, and they will have to remain in detention for up to one year before the “hearing” actually takes place to determine their status.

Hearings under the current law must be held within 48 hours which is a major change in Canada’s approach towards the protection of refugees, and regardless of how one might feel about the challenges of selecting and integrating new immigrants into Canadian society.

According to the legal/constitutional experts, the detention provisions of the said Bill violate several rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Charter of rights: this includes freedom from arbitrary detention, the right to prompt review of the reasons for detention, the right to liberty and security of the person, and freedom from cruel punishment indeed.

Section 9 of the Charter states that “everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.” Section 10(c) provides that everyone who is arrested or detained has the right “to have the validity of the detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful.

Additionally, fake claimants cause headache to the system. And, these queue jumpers have made problem from bad to worse leading to hardships for genuine asylum seekers. However, “the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act” makes several reforms to the refugee system, designed to crack down on bogus refugee claims.

Although, the government under immense pressure has proposed some amendments to the controversial new refugee bill, yet the critics still see major issues with the legislation.

Good and bad examples:

The original version of the bill, tabled last February, reads “asylum seekers who are part of mass arrivals would face mandatory detention for 12 months with no review.”

The amended version would require an initial review within 14 days, a second review six months later.

The government has saved itself from legal challenges under the original refugee law but is not completely off the hook yet.

The bill, as it was written originally, could have seen refugees who visited their now-peaceful home countries - lose their permanent residency status in Canada.

But now, the minister also promises to modify the bill’s wording for more clarity that refugees accepted years ago would not be retroactively deported to their homelands if conditions there improved.

The unfairly deprived, however, are the existing failed claimants, who would be barred by the authorities from applying for humanitarian consideration for 12 months, effective the day the said bill is passed.

No good news for the successful “mass arrival refugees,” as they would still be prevented from bringing over their children for five years.

The minister failed to define mass arrival (although the bill was prompted by the landing of two boatloads of Tamil asylum seekers in 2009 and 2010). And he did not provide any clarity either on how the government will designate “safe countries” to which asylum seekers can be sent back promptly with no right of appeal.

Despite changes in Bill C-31, there is no mechanism in place to challenge blunt refusal with respect to family reunification. Families are denied the opportunity to bring their spouse and children, because they did not list them when registering in refugee camps where people live in terrible conditions. Once the refugees arrive in Canada, they are given one-year window to declare another individual on their application.

Obviously, the mass migration to Canada is negative news for the locals as it adversely affects the rights of main stream lawful applicants. In fact, it severely slows down the processing of family re-unification regular cases.

But the fact remains that the asylum seekers including the boat loads of desperate people are not necessarily economic refugees or queue jumpers as most of them are genuine refugees running away desperately from life-threatening risky environment; thus deserve being accommodated according to law.