As you may know, the Employment Insurance Act is a very complex piece of legislation.
Now, in terms of the changes that are being proposed in budget 2017, there is specifically the new caregiving benefit, as well as flexibility with respect to the maternity and parental benefit. There are no changes specifically aimed at increasing eligibility for EI in these provisions, or to address the situation you have identified there, of a person who has completed one EI claim and who subsequently experiences another insurable event—whether it is job loss, maternity, or a compassionate care situation—and is unable to requalify. If they are short hours, this doesn't do anything for them.
Similarly, if it is a woman who has been off on maternity and parental, and she returns to work only to lose her job, this doesn't address that situation.
There are some adaptations we've made to the rules for combining EI benefits, which provide flexibility so that if somebody has recently lost their job and would still like to take maternity and parental, they are able to access the longer duration option. It does not increase the total number of benefits they would have access to.