The bloc calls for a “deep reform” of work insurance

Quebec bloc leader Yves Francois Blanchett took advantage of Labor Day on Monday to demand a “deep reform” of work insurance that included “easier” access to benefits for the self-employed. He also attacked the Canada Economic Benefit Program (CEP) again.

Henry Owlette Vezina
Journalism

We will not dispense with the observation that a comprehensive reform of employment insurance is necessary. There are players who remain on the bench when the time comes to take advantage of the services they have paid for. Which is not immediately acceptable,” said Mr. Blanchett during a press meeting held in Blanville, on the north shore of Montreal, in the morning.

Among the bloc’s demands, there is a financial “black hole” for seasonal workers, that is, the end of the waiting period for these employees, as well as lower qualification thresholds.

The party also reiterates its demand for employment insurance benefits to be reduced from 15 to 50 weeks for patients, and calls for “appropriate support” for young mothers who lose their jobs at the end of paternity leave. In short, it is a series of demands that would bring the current federal system into line with measures already in place in Quebec, in labor law.

Before the pandemic, only 40% of workers who paid their labor insurance premiums were able to access it. That just, to me, calls for a major overhaul.

Yves Francois Blanchett, leader of the Quebecoa bloc

Mr Blanchett also wants to return to the charge by reintroducing a bill “to make pension fund debt a priority in the event of a company’s bankruptcy”. This bill could not go further due to the dissolution of the House of Representatives when calling for elections. “Try to imagine the plight of these elderly people, who have been talked about so much since the beginning of the pandemic, when your pension fund is flooded by the company’s shutdown,” the president said of it.

He also wants to “put an end to both categories of workers” by formally banning strikes, a “repugnant practice” that federal law accuses of “easily tolerated.”

Over and over again, PCRE

The Beloeil-Chambly member also returned on Monday to the Canada Economic Recovery Grant (PCRE), which his party sees as “an obstacle to the healthy use of the available workforce” currently. Suspending the program will “restore” this balance of power, according to the bloc’s leader.

“PCRE was an alternative to employment insurance that was not well suited to a crisis like the pandemic. It therefore requires a profound reform of employment insurance and in the meantime, PCRE must be suspended, even if it can become useful again in the case of a fourth wave,” said Mr. Blanchett. .

However, his party recognizes the need to maintain the PCRE in the arts, culture, tourism and sectors “in which recovery is slow”. For the rest, however, it must be hung quickly, supporting the block.

However, this bloc’s proposal is highly questioned by the New Democratic Party (NDP), which believes that workers who choose PCRE over a job do so because of the poor working conditions provided by the recruit.