What I would like to see are some numbers on just how much EI takes in annually and how much it pays out. We have heard rumours of EI workers having ‘quotas’ set for disallowing EI payments to people.
There are many people working, who have never had to use EI and businesses pay right along with the workers so they should be concerned as well. After all, this money is supposed to go to help their workers when they don’t have work to employ them.
Its the same story with Worksafe.
Just try to claim it back when you most need it!
Yes there is some fraud. This should be investigated and penalised but there are far more claims denied for a host of reasons and not all of them good.

It is this kind of vicious corporate ideology that has drafted the EI cuts, which mark a fundamental shift in Employment Insurance further away from a programme to protect workers and further towards a system of “workfare” and forced labour.

It has recently been confirmed that the so-called “fraud prevention” investigators in the Ministry have EI quotas or “saving targets” of $40,000 per month per investigator, which means they must penalize many EI recipients and disqualify many to achieve the goal. The government’s response to the media exposing this news was an investigation into the whistleblowers! Targets for the recovery of benefits are $120 million for Quebec, $110 million for Ontario, $115 million for the Western provinces and Territories and $58 million for the Atlantic provinces.

Investigators are now also making “home visits” with an interrogation-style 23 question survey to verify the eligibility of EI recipients. Apparently this year, 1200 selected unemployed workers will receive a visit (197 in Quebec, in the Maritimes 220, 384 in Ontario and 374 in the west).

Moreover, activist organizations for the unemployed in Quebec are now finding workers dropped from EI after missing only two phone calls from Service Canada

We can all thank Harper this. Nothing more than a Crook!

The biggest scam is making people pay it back once they get a job making X amount.. What crap.. We pay into it for a reason..

The first fix needed is we shouldn’t have to pay for 30 or 40 years and never get to process a claim. There should be a ceiling, say 15 years of payments into the system and you and your company get a break in payments. Talk about a positive incentive for keeping long term employees….

And there should be progressive premiums for frequent users of the system, you use it more so why not pay more? It is insurance after all.

And there should be progressive premiums for frequent users of the system, you use it more so why not pay more? It is insurance after all.

I dont think that would work. Many jobs are seasonal. This would be like saying you use the health care more often so you should pay more because you have a health issue.

How many billions has the federal government pilfered from the UI fund over the years? In BC the government balances budgets by looting BC Hydro and ICBC in order to claim a balanced budget and I suspect the Feds do likewise with UI.