In 2023, the federal government promised to top up EI. It was about $12.5 million through pilot project number 22. This would have been made available to about 42,000 eligible seasonal workers in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. They would basically have received up to four additional weeks of EI regular benefits. This would really help to close the income gap for those claimants when they've exhausted their EI benefits before seasonal work resumes.
Programs like that would certainly help, especially in areas where the seasons can be quite short and where there's a wide variety of different businesses that are making up those seasonal workers.