Question Period Note: Employment Insurance and Workers in Seasonal Employment

How is the Government of Canada supporting workers in seasonal employment?

Seasonal workers are an important part of Canada’s economy and many of them rely on Employment Insurance (EI) for the support they need between work seasons.

In August 2018, we introduced temporary rules to provide up to five additional weeks of EI regular benefits to eligible seasonal workers in targeted regions.

Budget 2023 proposes to extend this important support for seasonal workers from October 2023 to October 2024.

The Government is committed to modernizing the EI program, including finding a permanent approach to support seasonal industries and their workforce. The work on a modernization plan continues and will be released by the Government when it is complete.

The issue of seasonal workers experiencing an income gap or “trou noir” is not a new phenomenon.

Trou noir represents the period when some workers in seasonal employment have exhausted their Employment Insurance (EI) benefits but continue to wait to be called back in for their seasonal job and are unable to find other employment. In other words, these claimants do not receive either employment income or EI benefits during this period.

As EI benefits may vary from year to year in each region, this can cause disruption for workers whose main jobs are seasonal.

In 2018, a pilot project was introduced to provide up to five additional weeks of EI regular benefits (up to a maximum of 45 weeks of entitlement) to eligible seasonal claimants in 13 targeted EI regions.

Through Budget 2021, the Government made legislative changes to the Employment Insurance Act to replicate the rules of the seasonal pilot project as a temporary measure until October 2022. Budget 2022 further extended the temporary measure until October 2023. Budget 2023 proposes to extend these temporary rules for one additional year, until October 2024; the cost of this support is estimated at $147 million over three years, starting in 2023-24, which will benefit 62,000 seasonal workers.

This measure provides up to five additional weeks of EI regular benefits to seasonal claimants in the 13 regions of Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Yukon originally targeted in the pilot project:

Newfoundland and Labrador (excludes St. John’s)

Eastern Nova Scotia

Western Nova Scotia

Prince Edward Island (excludes Charlottetown)

Charlottetown

Madawaska–Charlotte

Restigouche–Albert

Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine

Lower Saint Lawrence and North Shore

Central Québec

Chicoutimi–Jonquière

North Western Québec

Yukon (excludes Whitehorse)

In order to be eligible for the additional weeks of EI regular benefits, claimants must:

Meet all of the eligibility conditions for EI regular benefits;

Demonstrate a seasonal claiming pattern;

Reside in one of the 13 targeted EI economic regions; and

Establish a benefit period between September 26, 2021 and October 28, 2023. Budget 2023 proposes to extend this cut-off date to October 2024.

The legislative fix introduced in 2022 that ensures claimants whose seasonal claim pattern was disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but who meet the other eligibility conditions, are able to continue to access up to five additional weeks of EI regular benefits will continue to apply for the duration of the extension to October 2024.

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