Providing income support for a year to people who are too sick to work would cost the federal government $1 billion more than its current program, the parliamentary spending watchdog said Thursday. As is, the benefit available through employment insurance covers just over half of a worker’s earnings for 15 weeks, and nearly four in […]
Manitoba’s finance minister says he and his counterparts will take another look at changes to the Canada Pension Plan amid concerns that low-income workers and women are being shortchanged by the framework agreed to last year. Changes agreed to last year will increase employee premiums and retirement benefits, but do not include provisions that many […]
Nearly half the Canadians who seek to have decisions denying them access to Canada Pension Plan disability benefits are successfully appealing the rulings, according to a new statistic that is giving experts cause for concern. The figures illustrate what has happened in the year since Canada’s auditor general excoriated the government for its handling of […]
Daniel Derksen was, by all accounts, the model of perfect health. Then one day, he complained about stomach pains and went to see a doctor. Four months later, he died, the result of an aggressive cancerous tumour that didn’t respond to chemotherapy, radiation or multiple surgeries. He was just 38. His wife of 11 years, […]
The federal government’s bid to expand the Canada Pension Plan is being put under the microscope, including an examination of the impact it could have on sluggish economic numbers – or so the opposition hopes. The Commons finance committee is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting today to talk about the tentative agreement the federal […]
Newly released figures show jobless Canadians are waiting days for answers to their employment insurance questions, and a month or more to find out if they are going to receive benefits. The figures tabled in Parliament last week show 297,586 employment insurance applicants waited more than 28 days for a decision on their files between April […]
A special group assigned to help deal with a massive backlog of appeals around employment insurance and other social security benefits isn’t winding down anytime soon. The so-called spike unit was set up in the fall of 2014 to triage the cases that began piling up after the Conservative government launched the Social Security Tribunal […]