You report that the number of welfare cases is on the rise across Canada as laid-off workers exhaust their employment insurance benefits and turn to provincial social assistance programs for help (Ontario Seeks Ottawa's Help As Welfare Cases Spike - March 15). We have been telling the federal government for more than a year that this would happen.
As of February, there were 1.52-million unemployed Canadians; more than 20 per cent of them have been unemployed for more than six months because they can't find new jobs. The unemployed are running out of benefits and are being thrown back on provincial and municipal welfare systems and food banks to survive.
Workers and employers have contributed $57-billion more in EI premiums than the plan has paid out. These billions have been spent by successive federal governments for all manner of purposes, including corporate tax breaks and deficit reduction. It's high time that Ottawa fixes EI so that workers across the country can access an insurance program that they believed would be there for them when they needed it.
President, Canadian Labour Congress