Conservative government imposes stricter rules on recipients of unemployment benefits

The Conservative government has been cutting away at government services and the social safety under the universal mantra of cutting deficits. Of course the Stephen Harper government would not think of raising taxes on corporations or the rich as a way of cutting the deficit but the unemployed are fair game.

The new rules will make it particularly difficult for frequent users of EI (Employment Insurance). The announcement of the changes were made yesterday by Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.

The new rules require that EI recipients must accept job openings that are an hour or even further away the distance being based upon regional commuter patterns. Toronto was given as an example where even longer commutes could be expected.

Language in the existing bill that set out conditions under which recipients could refuse a job as not suitable has been removed and new stricter rules put in their place. In the new regulations there are three tiers of EI recipients. The longer that recipients are on EI the broader their job searches must be and the lower the salaries they must accept.

The third category of recipients are termed frequent users who have collected 60 or more weeks benefits in the last five years. At present 58 per cent of recipients fall within this group. Frequent recipients will only have six weeks to find a job in a "similar occupation" at at least 80 percent of pay. After that the applicant must accept any job the applicant is qualified to perform (or can be trained for) at 70 per cent of former earnings or more. So recipients must accept up to a 30 per cent pay cut or lose benefits. The new regulations will particularly hurt Canada's maritime provinces such as Newfoundland and Labrador where many communities have workers involved in seasonal activities such as fishing. During the off season these workers have depended upon EI to support them until the following season. Most rural coastal communities face the same situation so it would be difficult to find work nearby. The provinces most hurt are quite angry since they were not consulted about changes. For more see this article.

Tories ship flack into key EI slot.

This is from the EdmontonSun.
Seems that it pays to be a Conservative attack dog even if you have been suspended for attacking people gratuitously. Where did the fuzzy blue sweater kind and gentler Harper go?

Tories ship flack into key EI slot
By PETER ZIMONJIC, NATIONAL BUREAU

A Conservative communications official suspended from his job during the last election for accusing a fallen soldier's father of being a Liberal supporter has been promoted.
Ryan Sparrow is the new director of communications for Diane Finley, the minister of human resources and skills development -- the government department responsible for employment insurance.
Sparrow was suspended from the Conservative campaign team in September after he sent a television station an e-mail accusing Jim Davis, the father of Cpl. Paul Davis, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2006, of wanting to attack the government because he supported Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

Davis had earlier criticized Harper's announcement the Canadian military operation in Afghanistan would end in 2011 regardless of whether the job was done. Davis said the campaign promise of an early withdrawal would mean his son had died for nothing.
When Sparrow's e-mail became public, Prime Minister Stephen Harper condemned the remarks as not meeting the "tone" Harper had hoped to set during the campaign.
Last week, Sparrow was still working as the senior spokesman for the Conservative Party of Canada, a non-government job in which he reported directly to Finley's husband, Doug Finley, who is the party's national director and campaign chairman.
In his new position, Sparrow's paycheques will come from the taxpayer rather than the Conservatives -- and that has some opposition critics fuming.
"If the Conservative party wants him as their poster boy then they should pay him, but they shouldn't pay him with public money," said NDP MP Thomas Mulcair. "Ryan Sparrow's return to a civil service job is completely unacceptable."
Liberal MP David McGuinty said Sparrow is basically a conservative attack dog who did his job during the election and is being shuffled into the ministry responsible for EI because it's a hot file that could damage the Conservatives.
"Obviously, the prime minister has confidence in Mr. Sparrow," said McGuinty. "This is Harper's way of saying to his minister that he doesn't trust her communications management so he is putting someone in their office that he trusts, someone that will use hard-ball Republican tactics."
Sparrow refused interview requests from Sun Media, saying by e-mail he didn't "comment on staffing," including himself.
PETER.ZIMONJIC@SUNMEDIA.CA

Immigration changes unfair, critics charge.

This is from the Star. The changes allow Finley to make decisions without being accountable to parliament. The changes will pass because the Liberals are not willing to be accountable even when the Conservatives present legislation that makes them unaccountable. Conclusion: neither of the two main parties are accoutable to the Canadian public. Most people will vote for one or other of the unaccountable parties anyway. Conclusion: democracy is a system of government in which government is unaccountable to the people but with the consent of the people.
When there is so much work that backlogs form one solution is to hire more people or simplify the process. Neither solution involves giving the minister extra powers.

Immigration changes unfair, critics charge

Proposals embedded in budget bill would give minister power to deny or speed applications

Mar 24, 2008 04:30 AM
Nicholas Keung
Immigration/Diversity Reporter

Proposed changes to the Immigration Act may allow the overhaul of Canada's immigration system, but critics fear they could also allow Immigration Minister Diane Finley to ram through changes without parliamentary – and public – oversight.

Legal experts and immigrant advocates made their reservations known after the Conservative government announced plans to change the six-year-old Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by asking Parliament to relinquish its decision-making power on immigration policies to a single person – the minister.

Since Bill 50 was introduced this month, Finley has been touting it as a way to reduce the 800,000-case backlog and cut long waiting times for immigration applications.

But critics, while commending the government's political will to tackle the decade-old backlog, said they were caught off guard by the secrecy surrounding the new provisions.

The bill would allow the minister to discard applications from specific countries, reject applicants who otherwise meet all immigration criteria, and accelerate some applications, allowing queue-jumping.

Worst, applicants couldn't appeal.

Lawyer Lorne Waldman said the approach goes against the points system that was introduced in the late 1960s to make the system non-racist and accountable.

"This new change will undo all of this by allowing the minister to override the established criteria by directing that whole categories be not processed and by giving the minister the power to direct that applications be processed despite them not meeting the objective criteria," Waldman warned.

The bill could also terminate the processing of humanitarian applications from overseas and limit the number and type of applications each person could file.

All these scenarios could happen via "minister's instructions" that circumvent the traditional process of public consultations, parliamentary committee reviews and oversight, critics charge.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Finley said yesterday on CTV's Question Period. "We have to make it easier to get more people here faster. We have a backlog right now that the previous government ballooned from 50,000 to 800,000. It has since grown to 900,000."

Finley said the changes will help fill jobs that go empty while qualified people wait, as well as provide the option of faster processing for applicants from troubled areas.

The amendment is contained within the 2008 budget implementation bill, which means it would take a confidence vote to defeat the new provisions. That fact alone is alarming, said prominent immigration lawyer Gordon Maynard.

"It doesn't allow proper debate of the content. The opposition parties have to accept it or face an election. It just isn't fair," he said.

"It's a worry. It's a concern because these changes aren't made without reasons. Someone would have thought it out. What targets do they have in mind? They are not seen in the legislation."

The current law obliges the immigration department to consider, process and decide all applications to ensure every foreigner who meets the requirements is entitled to enter Canada. The new provisions give the minister the right to discard applications or retain them permanently – allowing the department to chop the backlog with no legal consequences.

The legal and advocacy community is campaigning against the changes and NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) has vowed to introduce a motion to delete the amendment when Parliament resumes this month.

But Gerri MacDonald, president of the Refugee Lawyers' Association of Ontario, isn't hopeful.

"The Conservative government put in all these unwanted provisions in a budget bill knowing that the opposition doesn't want to force an election," she noted.

"It is disturbing."