P.E.I. MP worries about possible EI processing delay
Department says there will be no impact to the delivery of EI claims.
An Island Liberal MP is worried about possible delays in the processing of employment insurance claims.
Wayne Easter believes Islanders already wait too long to receive money.
Ottawa announced EI claims being applied for this week won't be processed until new, corrected job numbers come out on Friday from Statistics Canada. The agency had previously announced the economy only created 200 jobs in July. But now it says, that figure is wrong.
A spokesperson for the minister of Employment and Social Development says EI applications filed this week have been put on hold until the new numbers are available so that no decisions are based on faulty data.
Malpeque MP Wayne Easter said he has been hearing a lot of complaints this summer about delays in processing EI claims and he is afraid this will just make things worse.
"It is going to cause hardship for those people that depend on that employment insurance money," said Easter. "A couple of days when you are barely getting by is a couple of days too long."
"What the government could have done is done the payout based on the previous stats and adjust it the next employment insurance cheque if that's what they had to do. But instead they imposed a further economic hardship on those that need the funding the most."
Department officials say there will be no impact to the delivery and processing times of EI claims.
They also note no one has received benefits based on the wrong data from Statistics Canada.