"I'm ... saying this was my life"

Having said which, that life had rather skewed values. 

"I'm coming out myself and saying this was my life.  If you want to say this is a wrong way to live, fine  Let's have that conversation."  Elizabeth May

Well, here's the thing of it.  An admission that this was the way of it, of Elizabeth May's understanding that it was perfectly legitimate to plan to work a specific length of time and then regularly apply for unemployment insurance to patch into another specific length of time.  Rather neat and tidy.  A pattern emerges where the time is put in, and then it is drawn out.

You get paid for work performed for a specific length of time, known in advance.  And you know in advance equally, that this 'qualifies' you for the expectation that you will be paid for the period of time when you will not be working.  Having little intention, because of this neat pattern that fits so nicely with how one's life is allocated into working/non-working dates, of upsetting the pattern.

If someone is dedicated to a specific profession that promises only part-time work perhaps they might wish to make adjustments that would fill in those times when the other times are not compensated by paid work.  Farmers and people who are self employed in work that is seasonal such as gardeners hope to earn enough during the time they can exchange work for cash return that will last beyond the working season.

People on the East Coast of Canada have famously dedicated themselves to the part-time game of working to acquire the requisite number of hours to qualify for what is now called employment insurance.  And in the same spirit of generosity and togetherness that spawned the provincial transfer payments, the federal government chose to be over-generous to industries reliant on conditions.

Regional disparities where employment is not steady throughout the year have made people dependent on their expectations of entitlement to insurance payments to augment their lifestyle.  A search for other, alternate work to tide over until the 'seasonal' work began again made no sense under those circumstances.

Regular drawers of EI are well known to take the system for granted; for them it is their due, to their critics it is abuse of the system.  EI is meant to be a temporary stopgap, an aid and an assist to help keep people off welfare rolls, although many consider it the sister-program of welfare.  It is meant to be a temporary safety net, not a permanently reliable second-income source.

When Elizabeth May explains that she worked for her family's seasonal business in Cape Breton, then regularly called upon unemployment insurance "when I needed it", she really misidentifies the purpose of EI (now named), but she is describing a general cultural/social perception of the program that is broadly accepted in the society she inhabited.

That does not, however, make it right.  Seasonal industries should, ideally, pay their employees salaries that should stretch over the entire year, if they expect those experienced employees to return with regularity when they're needed by the industry.  Much as is done with those in the teaching profession.  Failing that, because the industries would consider it to be too financially onerous, other stop-gap jobs should be taken.

And that seems to be what the newly-introduced legislation is all about.  If there are no jobs anywhere, then EI must be drawn upon until it is exhausted for the individual.  But planning a regular, reliable lifestyle around specific short-term work to be supplemented by EI doesn't seem quite on.  It is unfair to those who cannot claim EI because they work on contract or are self-employed.

And the attitude of entitlement by those who have continued to compromise the system believing themselves to be owed that financial support by the larger society is quite simply wrong.