Thanks very much.
We're from Employment and Social Development Canada.
The purpose of part II of the Employment Insurance Act is to help maintain a sustainable employment insurance system through the establishment of employment benefits for insured participants and the maintenance of a national employment system. This is carried out through the establishment of employment programs, referred to as “employment benefits and support measures”, which help unemployed individuals in Canada prepare for, find, and maintain suitable employment.
Part II of the act helps us support similar programs provided by the provincial and territorial governments through bilateral agreements on labour market development and by indigenous organization agreement holders, in keeping with the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy.
The Employment Insurance Act prescribes that only insured participants can have access to employment benefits programs such as skills development, wage subsidies, and self-employment assistance. The current definition of “insured participant” under the act is someone “who requests assistance under employment benefits” and is an unemployed person “for whom a benefit period is established” or “whose benefit period has ended within the previous 60 months”.
In order to develop the amendments for division 14 in part 4, we staged major consultations with provinces, territories, and stakeholders last summer, and then developed these amendments that expand eligibility for the employment benefits to include unemployed individuals who have made a minimum employment insurance premium contribution above the premium refund threshold in at least five out of the last 10 years. This threshold is currently set at $2,000 of insurable earnings as per subsection 96(4) of the act. That's the first part of the eligibility changes.
The second piece is around employment assistance services under the support measures. Support measures are programs such as employment counselling and job search assistance. Those are currently available to all unemployed Canadians. Now, with these amendments, this changes it to all unemployed and employed Canadians. Additionally, it increases the flexibility to support employer-sponsored training by expanding eligibility under the labour market partnerships measure to include employers whose employees need this assistance in order to maintain their current employment, for example, to adjust to technological and structural changes in the economy.
These three major amendments under employment insurance part II and for the labour market development agreements and ASETS program would come into effect on April 1, 2018.
With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.