Equiflash Archive

More than 8 million Canadians benefitted from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and as of June 20, 2021, more than 2 million have benefitted from the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB). You might be one of them.

For many Equity members, unable to access Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, these government supports have been a lifeline over the pandemic.

Fortunately, COVID has highlighted to the government the precarity of gig workers and the self-employed without access to the EI system and therefore in Budget 2021 they committed $5 million to consult with Canadians over two years about desirable reforms to the EI program. One objective of this consultation process is to consider whether EI can be expanded to more Canadian workers as temporary income support. In order for them to understand Canadians’ needs, they have launched a survey and one of the groups they are seeking input from is the self-employed.

From the Government’s background information.

Exploring flexibilities within the existing EI program to better support self-employed Canadians, and the need for a permanent and workable income support program for these workers, will be a major item on the agenda during the EI consultations.

You might be part of the 15% of the workforce who are self-employed or combine employment work with self-employment work. If so, the government wants to hear your thoughts on reforming the EI system to offer more support to workers like you.

The survey is open until October 8, 2021. We encourage all Equity members who meet these criteria to share their thoughts with the government on this important issue.

The survey link and further information can be found here.