Making EI Work: Research from the Mowat Centre Employment Insurance Task Force ed. by Keith Banting, Jon Medow (review)

In November 2011 the Mowat Centre published the much-heralded final report of its Employment Insurance Task Force. The report contained 18 major recommendations intended to deal with the range of issues and failures that beset the current EI system. The recommendations amount to nothing less than “a blueprint for a strengthened national program to support the unemployed” (p. vii). So far the Harper government appears to have ignored these recommendations entirely, focusing on its controversial tightening of the willingness-to-work rules instead.

The task force commissioned a large amount of research from Canada’s leading experts on matters pertaining to the EI system to guide and support its recommendations. This volume collects the bulk of that research. It is not exactly a page-turner. But it does bring together information about all major aspects of the current system as well as a range of (sometimes conflicting) arguments, opinions, and recommendations from some of the most knowledgeable people in the field. This resource will be of use even to those already well acquainted with the problems of the present system.

The research papers are presented under four section headings: coverage and access issues, Canada’s unique system of regionally differentiated entitlement, long-term displaced workers, and federalism and governance issues. Ever since the proportion of the unemployed receiving EI benefits fell below 50 percent in the early 1990s, as a combined consequence of tightening rules and changing work patterns (the rising proportion of “non-standard” employment), access to EI has been hotly debate. There are a number of issues here. As Leah Vosko shows at length in her contribution, women, young workers, older workers, and (recent) immigrants find it on average more difficult to meet the minimum-hours-worked requirements than prime-age, white, native-born males.

This is so for two reasons. First, the members of these groups are overrepresented among workers with a “non-standard” job (part-time, temporary) in which it is difficult to meet the minimum-hours requirements, as well as among new entrants and re-entrants (so-called NEREs) who have to meet a higher fixed requirement of 920 hours. Second, the members of these groups are disproportionately located in urban areas where unemployment rates have historically been relatively low and where, as a result of Canada’s unusual system of regionally varying entry requirements and maximum benefit periods, EI access and benefit rules have been the most restrictive. To remedy the situation as well as to meet broader redistributive policy goals, Vosko recommends a substantial reduction of the hours-required criterion and increases in benefit levels across the board. By contrast, Michael Mendelson and Ken Battle argue that “there is little scope for improving Employment Insurance coverage through reducing hours of work required for eligibility” (p. 168). Their findings show that of the roughly 55 percent of the unemployed who are ineligible for EI benefits, only 13.1 percent at most are ineligible because of insufficient hours worked.

There is a similar disagreement over whether or not the self-employed should participate in the EI system. While Vosko argues for mandatory inclusion of the “solo self-employed” on the grounds that many of them “earn low income, and lack genuine control over their work” (p. 90), Mendelson and Battle flatly reject any such possibility on the grounds that “attempting to include a group whose employment status is so nebulous is an invitation to mismanagement.… There is no mechanism to include the self-employed in Employment Insurance without undermining the whole program” (pp. 165–66). Most of the other contributors agree that including the self-employed introduces insurmountable moral hazard problems. This near-consensus covers the politically sensitive exception for self-employed fishers as well: most contributors recommend abolishing this coverage or moving it out of the EI program.

Another major concern having to do with coverage...