Was Edmonton's exclusion from federal EI changes fair?
Laid off construction worker 'cheesed' improvements to employment insurance don't include capital
It's been three months since construction worker Scott Fieber was laid off, and he still can't find a job.
Fieber collected eight weeks of employment insurance benefits after losing his job in December. Since then, he's been job searching every day. He's waited in the daily lineup at Alberta Works for hours at a time, pawned off his valuables and moved into a friend's place because he can't afford his rent.
Fieber is relying on social assistance, and willing to work a lower paying job just for a regular paycheque. It's been a struggle, and he's not happy to hear it could be a similar story for others because Edmonton was excluded from changes to eligibility for Employment Insurance benefits announced in Tuesday's federal budget.
Now, he's considering moving to Calgary or Saskatchewan for work.
"I'm a little cheesed," he said of Edmonton's omission.
"It's unfair to the Edmonton region. Everybody should be able to get it if they live in Alberta. I think it should be province-wide. We should be entitled to all the same benefits that every other Albertan is entitled to."
'Our unemployment rate is, unfortunately, rising'
The budget changes announced Tuesday mean unemployed workers in 12 regions in western Canada, northern Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador hit hardest by the faltering economy will find it easier to qualify for benefits and will receive them for a longer period of time.
Alberta claimants who qualify will get an additional five weeks of benefits. Long-tenured employees will receive 20 extra weeks of help. The benefits are also retroactive to January 2015.
The longer people can receive these benefits, obviously the better off the Edmonton economy would be, particularly in the longer term.- John Rose, Edmonton's chief economist
Edmonton was excluded because its unemployment rate wasn't quite high enough on paper, said John Rose, Edmonton's chief economist. But he said Edmonton's unemployment rate isn't indicative of the severity of the problem, because he expects it to climb.
"The approach taken by the federal government in determining which regions would receive the supplemental benefits was based on how much your unemployment rate has gone up over the period between 2015 and 2016," Rose explained.
"The level they picked was two per cent, and unfortunately when you crunch the numbers for Edmonton, we come out at 1.8 per cent. But our unemployment rate is, unfortunately, rising and I'm quite confident, unfortunately, that in the next month or two we would have that two percentage point increase."
City wants Ottawa revisit numbers
Unemployment benefits are determined by where an employee lives, not where they work, Rose said. So if a worker loses their job in Fort McMurray but lives in Edmonton, they would not qualify under the government's changes.
Rose called the situation "unfortunate" for Edmonton, and said the city will be asking Ottawa when and how frequently they will revisit the city's unemployment numbers.
"The longer people can receive these benefits, obviously the better off the Edmonton economy would be, particularly in the longer term," Rose said.
"If we continue to see oil prices remain depressed and the Alberta economy continues to suffer from a very weak energy sector, this would become a very important issue as people would exhaust their benefits in about a year and that would lead to a very difficult situation where you'd start to see very rapid run-up in mortgage defaults and bankruptcies."
Mayor Don Ivseon said the city is trying to learn more about the criteria used to exclude Edmonton so the city can forecast whether the region will become eligible in the future.
"I think the real question is how quickly would that sort of thing happen," Iveson said about how quickly the government will respond. "There are still some process issues to work out there, but I think the relief will be there if our numbers shift to same point as they make rest of the province eligible."
