DCHP-3

employment insurance

DCHP-2 (Jun 2016)

Spelling variants:
Employment Insurance, EI

n. & adj. — Administration, Law; euphemism (see fist note)

temporary support payments for qualified workers who have been laid off, who are sick, injured or quarantined, or who are caring for a new infant or for a critically ill family member.

Type: 1. Origin — Discussions of support for the unemployed in Canada began with the need to integrate returning soldiers after WWI. However, the first federal program dates from 1940 with the passage of the Unemployment Insurance Act. The name change from unemployment insurance (or UI) to Employment Insurance (or EI) solidified in the mid-1990s (see the 1994 quotation). The renaming was enacted in law in 1996 (Bill C-12, see the Maple Leaf Web reference), yet the antecedents of the change are much older (see the 1978 quotation). Today, the program is still often called by its previous name (see the 2013 quotation, see also the Maple Leaf Web reference).
Note that employment insurance is offered not only to the unemployed, but also to the long-term sick, the pregnant, and those caring for a newborn, newly-adopted, or seriously ill family member.
See also COD-2, which marks the term "Cdn".
The shift from the term unemployment insurance to employment insurance reflects a desire to wipe out the long-standing stigma against the jobless that sees them as lazy rather than subject to economic and social forces beyond their control.

Quotations

1978
Nancy Hazelgrove, an artist, complains that the proposed cuts of the Canada Council art grants would force her to go onto employment insurance (letter, Sept. 15).
1989
A while back you stated that a person who worked 20 weeks in the previous 52 would be entitled to a special three-week lump sum employment insurance (UI) benefit at age 65.
1991
In a nutshell, the precedent-setting case established that pregnant women are entitled to full sickness and disability benefits under their employment insurance plans, that they cannot be excluded from coverage at any time due to their pregnancy, and that plans which do exclude pregnancy as a valid reason for compensation are discriminatory.
1994
UI merit system faulted: workers, small businesses can't pay premiums: study (From Unemployment Insurance to Employment Insurance)
2000
Although Employment Insurance levies drop Jan. 1 by 15 cents per $100 of earnings, Canada Pension Plan premiums are going up by 40 cents per $100 of earnings.
2004
The engineers referred to it as "GBS" -- a shorthand that Newfoundlanders have come to call "Great Big Stamp," a reference to the Employment Insurance entitlements they earned.
2006
At the time, Ottawa transformed the old UI program into Employment Insurance (EI) with several measures to make it less cushy for people who work only a few weeks each year.
2009
The fate of the 40th Parliament hangs on whether this week's Conservative government announcement on employment insurance reform is enough to win the support of at least one opposition party.
2013
Allan Cooper was born in Moncton in 1954. His father worked for the Unemployment Insurance Commission (now the Canada Employment Insurance Commission), his mother was an educational consultant.
2016
The Employment Insurance Internet Reporting Service allows you to submit your EI report using the Internet. During the life of your claim, you will be asked to complete reports to demonstrate your continuing entitlement. EI Internet Reporting Service is the electronic service that allows you to do this easily over the Internet.

References