(OTTAWA) The federal government announced Friday that the duration of employment insurance sickness benefits will soon be increased from 15 to 26 weeks.
In a statement, Jobs Minister Carla Qualtrough says Canadians who qualify and reapply on or after December 18 will be able to receive up to 26 weeks of EI sickness benefits.
The maximum length of unpaid sick leave available to workers in the federally regulated private sector will also increase from 17 to 27 weeks, starting Dec. 18, under the Canada Labor Code.
Employment Insurance sickness benefits are available to Canadians who must temporarily leave work due to illness, injury or quarantine. The amount of these benefits is set at 55% of the claimant’s average weekly insurable earnings, up to a maximum of $638 per week in 2022.
The National Council of the Unemployed and Unemployed welcomed this “big step forward”, while recalling that this extension had been announced in the 2021 budget and that it was to be in force last August.
The organization’s spokesperson, Pierre Céré, also points out that the duration of these benefits “had not been modified since the introduction of this component in the program in 1971”.
Mr. Céré maintains that this change in Ottawa “is the result of several years of mobilization of multiple actors in civil society, and paves the way for the continuous improvement of this component of employment insurance towards the 50 weeks of benefits”.
The Bloc Québécois labor critic, Louise Chabot, believes that the Liberal government “is satisfied with a half-measure which, moreover, should have been in place since last July”.
“We know that in cases of serious illness, such as cancer, workers need a minimum of 41 weeks of sickness benefits to recover with dignity,” she wrote in a statement.
“Parliament has adopted, on several occasions, the principle of 50 weeks of illness, as when we tabled our bill” of parliamentary initiative in February 2021, recalls Mr.me Sculpin.
The Liberals had promised during the last election campaign, in 2021, to modernize the employment insurance system. They pledged to expand the program to cover the self-employed and address gaps in the system, including those highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since August 2021, the government has carried out two phases of consultations on the reform of employment insurance. The Liberals have not specified when this reform will take place, but Minister Qualtrough has already said that the government will present by the end of this year its “long-term plan for the future of employment insurance “.
Pierre Céré stresses that Friday’s announcement “in no way replaces the long-awaited reform of employment insurance, which should be presented, according to government signals, at the beginning of December”.