Liberal MP says EI reform for self-employed women may appear on an upcoming election platform

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While some critics believe the country's entire employment insurance program needs to be examined and reformed, there is another demographic of Canadians who feel one specific reform is needed -- and they say they may be gaining some momentum.

Julie McSorley is a past president for Moncton's Business and Professional Women's (BPW) group and is also the young vice president for BPW Canada. She has been involved with pushing for a reform which would allow self-employed or female business owners to have access to EI benefits when they need to go on maternal leaves from their work.

"We have a whole demographic here who potentially don't have access. The issue here is that women are opening their own businesses at a much faster pace than men, so it's becoming more of an issue and women are often being forced to choose between motherhood or their business," McSorley said. "And if they do choose to have children it also means they are incurring a lot of additional expenses because they are the key person in the business."

Having been a hot topic issue for quite some time, McSorley believes some progress might have been made recently, as she's heard rumblings that such a reform might appear on political party platforms in the next federal election.

Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal MP for Beauséjour and national platform co-chair, said it's a possibility this item would be included in an upcoming platform and after talking to groups like the BPW he's interested in working to make it happen.

"I think we need to change the rules to allow them to contribute a portion of the premiums into the fund and then they would be eligible for the benefits related to sickness or parental leave," he said.

McSorley adds that Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe MP Brian Murphy has also been very supportive of the initiative.

Ian Munro, director of research with independent economic and social policy think tank the Atlantic Institute of Market Studies (AIMS), said it would be problematic to pay out benefits to people who don't pay into the EI system and therefore the most critical step to such a reform would be to set up a system for those business owners to become involved in payments into the EI coffer.

As for the system as a whole, Munro and those at AIMS believe it is time employment insurance is held under a microscope and completely revamped.

"I think the key thing is that the system provides too many incentives for people not to work. We still see fairly high unemployment rates in the Atlantic region of Canada, yet we have companies just screaming for workers in places like Moncton, Saint John and Halifax," he said. "EI should be there to help those people get back on their feet and move onto a new job, but sadly over the years it is becoming a means of backstopping short-term employment in industries that can't seem to maintain long-term employment."

LeBlanc counters that if there are people who abuse EI payments and use it as an excuse not to find work, they are in the vast minority.

"If there's a percentage of people that will choose to be on EI instead of finding available work, you don't punish the 98 per cent of people that need employment insurance at a time of the year when there's no work or when a business they're in closes," he said.

Murphy adds that he doesn't see any widespread abuse of the system and said he also doesn't see any need for a complete overhaul to the employment insurance reform.

Munro also believes EI surpluses should be directed towards greater worker training, which might assist the Atlantic region in keeping more employees. He estimates that the EI surplus had reached $54-billion prior to last year's budget and should be put back into job training, perhaps in the form of a work training voucher.

"They could spend it at community colleges, universities or whatever it might be. It would fit their interest, fit their skills and would prepare them for a better job in the future," he said.

Conversely, LeBlanc believes a decrease in EI premiums would force workers out of province in search of different job opportunities, although he agrees increased emphasis on job training would be a positive.

"The challenge is for government to have policies that create additional work in areas like southeast New Brunswick and train people to be able to do the jobs that are available to them," he said.