In Canada, the criteria for access to social benefits depend in particular on the region in which the worker has just lost his job.
by
In Canada, losing his job in Toronto, in an average city of British Columbia or in the Far North Canadian, changes the game for the unemployed. The economic situation of his place of residence determines, in fact, his access to the opening of his rights, the amount of the services received and the maximum duration of his compensation.
Each month, the unemployment rate established by the public statistical organization Canada in each of the country’s 62 economic regions serves as a “variable accessibility standard”: the higher this rate, better and longer the ex- employee will be covered; On the other hand, if he lies in a region of full employment, he will have all the difficulties in asserting his rights. He will have to justify at least 700 hours worked in the previous year to benefit from 14 weeks of services when the unemployment rate of his place of residence is below 6 %, when 420 hours will be enough for 32 weeks of compensation when it flies over 16 % in its region. A modulation according to the situation of the labor market which seems to inspire the French government of Elisabeth Borne which presented, Wednesday September 7 in the Council of Ministers, its unemployment insurance reform to, in particular, respond to the recruitment of business recruitment .
This notion of “variable eligibility standard” appeared in the Canadian unemployment insurance system – renamed “employment insurance” in 1996 – in full neoliberal wave. From the late 1980s to 1996, successive, conservative and liberal federal governments, adopted reforms that drastically tightened the conditions of access to services, with the displayed objective of ensuring the financial balance of the system.
“individual liability”
“It is all the philosophy of this social policy that has been transformed,” explains Pierre Tircher, co-author at the Institute for Research and Socio-Economic Information (Quebec) of a system reform proposal . “We went from the Welfare to the workfare, from a collective responsibility where the State plays the role of economic stabilizer to protect the purchasing power of workers, to an individual responsibility where the one who loses his job in a region in full vitality Economic is no longer guaranteed against the “risk” for which he nevertheless contributed like everyone else. “Generous” during the period of “Thirty Glorious Years”, the program became, according to him, “ultra-restrictive”: Today it would only cover 30 % to 40 % of the population in unemployment.
You have 59.32% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.