Atlantic Premiers release report on impact of EI changes

The Council of Atlantic Premiers released its long-awaited report Mondayon the impact of recent changes to Employment Insurance.

In June of 2013, the Atlantic premiers announced the creation of an advisory panel to do a detailed study on the impact of the changes on this region.

Over 11 months, panel membersspoke with claimants, business owners, government representatives and concerned citizens.

In its report, thepanel saidAtlantic Canadians have deep concerns about the potential effects of the changes.It saidmuch of the fear comes from the way the changes were brought in.

But it said without detailed statistical analysis of the EI claimant data it's not able to provide a detailed examination of actual effects. It saidthat work should be done in future.

The panel does however make several recommendations.

They include improved communication to claimants, implementation of service standards for the EI program and revision of the "working while on claim financial formula" to ensure that claimants use the program and employers can find workers for short-term employment.

The panel also recommends the reinstatement of the "best 14 weeks and extended employment insurance benefits pilot project."

"This is an important recommendation for our province," said P.E.I. Premier Robert Ghiz.

"The report tells us that the federal government cannot continue to use a one-size-fits-allapproach to these programs."

"This has a disproportional impact on our province, due to our seasonal economy.

The panel also saidOttawa must commit to collaborate with the Atlantic premiers to address employment issues.

A spokesperson for Employment and Social Development minister Jason Kenney saidthe changes to Employment Insurance did not change the rules around applying and qualifying for E-I -- they simply clarified longstanding requirements.

Alexandra Fortier saidthe federal Government proactively gave the data gathered by Statistics Canada to the Panel, and the findings could not be more clear with far less than 1 percent of E-I disqualifications having to do with the Federal Government's changes to E-I.

"Inother words, 99 percent of E-I disqualifications have absolutely nothing to do with the changes," said Fortier.

"Ourgovernment made reasonable changes to the Employment Insurance system in part because a growing number of employers were experiencing labour shortages, even in regions of high unemployment, and were resorting to bringing in temporary foreign workers from overseas, rather than hiring local unemployed individuals".