There is another thing I struggle with. With respect to EI and the self-employed, we are talking about double-sided benefits they would have to contribute. Realistically, it might be in a compensation package for the employed, but at the end of the day this is the full compensation package. If it was an employee-employer contribution, then perhaps there would be other benefits added for the employee on an EI plan. For a self-employed person, it seems like a dramatic amount of money. But if you look at how it affects an employee, it's probably not much different. It just looks that way when you're going from an unknown to more than 9%.
On November 24th, 2009. See this statement in context.