The former Department of Canada Employment and Immigration Commission provided assistance to affected workers of La Nationale mine in Thetford Mines through the former labour adjustment benefit, LAB program. The successor to LAB was the program for older workers adjustment, POWA, program, which came into effect on January 1, 1988.
The LAB program legislation became effective on May 1, 1982. The purpose of LAB was to assist Canadians in four industries within 21 designated regions by providing workers with adjustment benefits. Benefits were and are paid through the employment insurance payment systems. Benefits were provided to laid off workers at the following mines: La Nationale, Bell, Carrie Canadian and Lac D'Amiante.
A total of 3,751 workers were accepted under the LAB program who have been paid a total of $105,778,923 as of September 30, 1998.
In order to qualify for benefits, an individual had to:
(1) be at least 54 years of age on the effective date of layoff;
(2) be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada;
(3) have been employed in a generally designated industry or industries for at least 10 of the 15 years preceeding the layoff, and have been paid for at least 1,000 hours of employment in each of those years;
(4) have claimed or exhausted all employment insurance benefits; and
(5) have no present prospects of employment or have accepted employment with earnings less than average weekly insurable earnings prior to layoff.
In cases of financial hardship, benefits could be payable to individuals whose age plus years of service, as previously defined, equaled 80 or more.
In order to assure that benefits were maintained, in the spirit of a last resort income maintenance measure, the Canada employment centres, CECs undertook to review the recipients' circumstances at least every six months to re-examine their prospects for employment.