Long Overdue Solution

In cleaning up some misunderstandings current and implicit in the Employment Insurance fund, that people can in good conscience exhaust their personal qualifications for ongoing support in lieu of searching for employment, until such time as their benefits run out, the government, in its recently-announced changes, has emphasized the reason for the fund's existence.  As a stop-gap measure to give people time to reorient themselves to the job market.

Rather than depending on it as a way of on-again, off-again workforce lifestyle.  And now that it has been made abundantly clear that deliberately depending on EI to flesh out a year-long salary base for part-time work carefully calibrated to result in the required number of employment hours to qualify, year in, year out, for ongoing support for the general population, it seems the government is looking a little further, to other groups dependent on EI.

Little wonder most people who continually apply for EI, often refer to it as the "pogey".  People not accustomed in their naivete to the manner in which Employment Insurance is used by those savvy to its potential, have always found that reference confusing, themselves viewing it as a kind of insurance policy to be called upon only when absolutely necessary and even then with a minimum of dependence.

Now, attention is being turned on First Nations with the idea of un-accustoming young band members to reliance on welfare, which has simply become yet another form of useless dependency.  The Federal government is planning to work with aboriginal peoples "to encourage those who can work to access training and encourage their participation in the labour market".

Good idea.  Why did it take so long?  In an effort to "better align on-reserve Income Assistance programs with provincial systems" relating to compliance and program requirements, the idea is to offer those fully capable of employment the encouragement to actually get out there and look for work rather than remain idle, bored, dissatisfied and dependent on social welfare.  An idea whose time has long since passed.

Despite labour shortages throughout Western Canada, the high numbers of aboriginals on income assistance is staggering.  In Saskatchewan, with an unemployment rate of 4.9%, 48.1% of natives on reserve remain on income assistance.  As for Manitoba, with their own unemployment rate standing at 5.3%, 50% of on-reserve natives are on welfare.

First Nations bands are to be encouraged to sign up to a program, encouraged by the prospect of enhanced funding, to institute some new regulations that would see them cutting off welfare for people who are capable of working, but have no intention of being trained or re-trained, let alone looking for employment.