Human Resources Minister Diane Finley to blame for EI backlog, says public ...
Public servants and critics are calling for the political head of Human Resources Minister Diane Finley after she blamed workers for deliberately causing the serious backlog in employment insurance benefits sent out to jobless Canadians.
About 2,500 members of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU) filed grievances against the controversial minister for comments she made in a letter to the editor of the Charlottetown Guardian, in which she accused the 4,000 Service Canada employees in the EI area of deliberately dragging their feet.
The delays in processing payments have emerged as a major issue in Ottawa over the past few months.
In October 2007, there were 181,931 people waiting for claims to be processed. By last October that number climbed to 360,481. Over the same period temporary and permanent staff was reduced by 13 per cent.
“It is indeed unfortunate that union leaders — who are clearly very convincing to the members of the opposition — are selfishly attempting to ensure that the old, costly, ineffective and labour-intensive methods for processing EI remain in place.
“We will not allow these tactics to interfere with our efforts to improve EI processing for Canadians,” Finley stated.
NDP human resources critic Jean Crowder (Nanaimo—Cowichan) and Employment Insurance Critic Claude Patry (Jonquière—Alma) want Finley to apologize to the federal public servants and suggest she should look into the mirror to see the real problem.
Finley could not be reached for comment .
“We learned today that the phone lines at Service Canada are so jammed that only one call out of three makes it to an agent. The time to process a claim went from 27 days to 45. This is not the service Canadians need and deserve,” Crowder said.
Claude Patry said it is difficult to understand why Finley is blaming the workers when the Conservative government made a decision to cut staff “just when Canadians need help the most.
Employment Resources Nanaimo Bc - News
The task of quickly amalgamating two terminals into one was that of Melanie Lucia, regional manager, terminal operations responsible for three Nanaimo terminals, including the Gabriola Island terminal downtown. There was support from BC Ferries'
Employees can leave their cars at home and commute by transit, carpool, walk or ride meaning less parking fees. Less commuting by car means cleaner air and safer streets. Nanaimo CarShare, a volunteerrun co-operative parks its car at Port Place Mall.
NDP human resources critic Jean Crowder (Nanaimo—Cowichan) and Employment Insurance Critic Claude Patry (Jonquière—Alma) want Finley to apologize to the federal public servants and suggest she should look into the mirror to see the real problem.
“There is still a high level of youth unemployment. It's not hopeless but you can't change the economic environment,” said Arnett. For more information on SET services please go to www.set-nanaimo.com and for NYSA services go to www.nysa.bc.ca.
One is the Job Options BC program, which will begin a new session on Jan. 16. The program runs 10 weeks, five in class, and is open to anyone who is not on employment insurance. Participants learn how to find jobs in "the hidden job market",