Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My name is Annette Ryan. I'm director general of employment insurance policy at Employment and Social Development Canada. I'm joined by Janique Venne, who is director of our regular benefits policy, also at ESDC.
Let me answer the honourable member's question from the last round of questions before treating this measure. I would simply say that there has been no change to the family supplement portion of employment insurance. It remains as it always has been, and the name change has no policy import for that section of the EI program.
To turn to the legislative proposal, I would start, Mr. Chair, by saying that the proposal is not a change of policy or program operations in any way. The measure is a limited technical legislative proposal that's intended to strengthen the initial regulatory implementation of one of the government's main Budget 2016 EI commitments.
Starting from that description, that the measure is essentially technical, I'll describe it further. The measure speaks to the definition of what is not “suitable employment” within the Employment Insurance Act. The act has had a long-standing provision that creates an obligation for our claimants to actively look for and be willing to accept suitable work.
This concept of what is suitable work, and more specifically “not suitable employment”, was included in the Employment Insurance Act prior to 2013. Considerable jurisprudence was established through time to inform how this concept should be interpreted by Service Canada agents, workers, and employers.
In Budget 2012, new measures were introduced under the rubric of connecting Canadians with available jobs. Under this initiative, provisions specifying what is “not suitable employment” in the EI Act were repealed, and the question of what is suitable and not suitable employment was established fully in regulation at that time.
The EI regulations were amended to prescribe specific criteria on these fronts. They spoke to what the claimant is expected to search for and accept through the duration of their claim, based on the claimant category to which they belong. These criteria, established in regulation in 2013, introduced different treatments for different EI claimants, depending on their work history, while the criteria relating to daily commuting time to and from work and those types of measures were also then specified in regulation.
Moving ahead to Budget 2016, the government set forth an initiative to simplify job search responsibilities for EI claimants and reversed the criteria adopted in regulation in 2013. At the time, we made those changes fully in regulation, to be in effect by July 3, 2016.
Specifically, criteria relating to the length of commuting time, offered earnings, and the type of work were repealed and replaced by provisions specifying what is “not suitable employment” as set out in the EI Act prior to 2013. Essentially, we went back entirely to the previous text that had been in place prior to 2013, but we placed it in regulations, whereas prior to 2013 that text had been in legislation.
Other policy changes were made, effective July 3, 2016. References to such claimant categories as long-tenured workers, frequent claimants, and occasional claimants as tied to their job search responsibilities were removed from the criteria determining what constitutes “suitable employment”.
The question was essentially subsequently raised within the regulatory process as to whether the specific concept of “not suitable employment” would be better established in legislation, as had been the case prior to 2013, rather than in regulation.
Essentially, limited technical amendments are proposed today to legislate the provisions related to the definition of what is not suitable in the EI Act. Provisions related to the criteria for determining what constitutes “suitable employment” will remain in the regulations.
If I may make an editorial statement, let me say that the measures that will remain in the regulations are essentially new measures that are favourable to EI claimants, whereas the measure of what is “not suitable employment” reconstitutes entirely the legislative fabric in place prior to that time, which essentially adjudicated claims that the worker might want to press.
Essentially, the proposal to adopt the provision in legislation is intended to align even more fully and directly with past jurisprudence. It does not alter the policy intent of what was adopted in July 2016 in any way.
I will conclude there, Mr. Chair.
I'm happy to take questions.