Large Scale
EI Abuse!

EI Abuser #1 - Jim Flaherty 
UPDATED (scroll down)

It gets difficult to tell if these guys, especially the Canadian Taliban, otherwise known as the Harper Government©, are loathe to use their brain before they engage their mouths, unable to use a brain that doesn't work or are just LIARS! This week our man in finance Jim Flaherty has come out swinging against lazy, entitled Canadians who would rather suck off the government tit and collect Employment Insurance than take a job that doesn't suit their elevated sense of entitlement. Thus Lord Jim has degreed according the the Canadian Press in No Bad Job that:

  The Harper Conservatives are signalling they are preparing to get tough with unemployed Canadians who refuse jobs they consider below them or too far away.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Monday new rule changes to define "suitable employment" and "reasonable" efforts at finding work have yet to come down, but as far as he's concerned people should be prepared to take pretty well any available job.

"There is no bad job, the only bad job is not having a job," he told reporters. "I drove a taxi, I refereed hockey. You do what you have to do to make a living."

    'There is no bad job, the only bad job is not having a job.'—Finance Minister Jim Flaherty......./snip 

The minister's statement came in a news conference in which he pressed the case for early passage of a massive omnibus bill the opposition has labelled a "Trojan horse" because it bundles together a wide array of issues, from environmental reviews to employment insurance, immigration, old age pensions and public service cutbacks.

Flaherty made clear that the definition of what constitutes "suitable employment" under the Employment Insurance Act will be decided by Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.

Any job for anyone 'insulting': opposition

But NDP critic Peggy Nash said Canadians should be concerned about what appears to be a hard line taken from the finance minister. "If you are a computer software developer, will you be working at Tim Horton's?

If you are an unemployed teacher or nurse, will you be working in the agricultural sector picking fruit?" she asked. 'If you are an unemployed teacher or nurse, will you be working in the agricultural sector picking fruit?'—NDP critic Peggy Nash

 In case you are thinking that I am being over the top by calling Mr. Flaherty an abuser of the EI system, keep in mind the fact that the entire system is COMPLETELY funded by employers and employees and for the last many years, due to constantly lengthening periods required to qualify for benefits and shortening periods of eligibility for those who do qualify  the system has managed to accumulate a surplus of almost 60 billion dollars up to the present time.  However that surplus isn't there because (here comes the abuse) successive governments, especially the current excuse for a government, have routinely raided the fund to subsidize such worker coddling projects as Corporate Tax Cuts, gazebos in Tony Clement Land, flying Peter MacKay to go fishing, buying orange juice for Bev Oda and bailing out banks.

In 2008 two unions in Quebec challenged this redirection of workers' INSURANCE PREMIUMS to other non-related expenses, such as subsidizing corporations to assist them in moving jobs offshore (Aveos, Caterpillar) but as one can't help noticing, justice is in short supply in Canada anymore, unless one is a member of the one percent club.  According to the Edmonton Journal from December 18, 2008:

   OTTAWA - There will be no EI Christmas bonus for Canadians after the Supreme Court of Canada refused Thursday to order the government to return a $57-billion surplus in the employment insurance fund to contributors.

However, the court said in the same decision that the former Liberal government illegally collected premiums for three years because it let the federal cabinet set the annual rate rather than Parliament.

In the 7-0 ruling, the judges gave the government one year to fix its unconstitutional error of "taxation without representation" in 2002, 2003, and 2005.

"According to that principle, a tax can be imposed only by Parliament or a clearly authorized delegate of Parliament," wrote Justice Louis LeBel.

The court did not suggest ways to make amends, nor did it order that any of the approximately $53 billion in illegal collections be repaid.

One option, said legal analysts, would be for Parliament to pass retroactive legislation approving cabinet setting the premium criteria in the years in question.

"We are analyzing the decision ... and its implications to develop a solution that respects the Supreme Court decision," said Julie Vaux, communications director for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley.

 I've, like Mr. Fathead Flaherty done many jobs in my life, from being a cowhand for $90 per month and found (room and board) to washing dishes at a truck stop, but later on in life when I was say off for a couple months for spring break-up as a high lead hook-tender making almost thirty dollars per hour (in the early 1980's), it was unlikely that the local Tim Horton's would even consider training me to make a double double just so I could go back to the woods once I got skilled. Besides, as a high paid worker I was only collecting benefits on an insurance policy that my employer and myself had paid for with our own funds. What's next, raiding CPP premiums and insisting all elderly folks become greeters at Wal-Mart? Actually the Fatuous Mr. Flaherty even went well beyond the fringe with:

"That means we are going to have to encourage more persons with disabilities to work, more seniors to work, more aboriginal people to work, including young people. We need to get rid of disincentives in the employment insurance system to people joining the workforce."

 This rhetoric is rich coming from a pompous ass who will undoubtedly have no qualms about collecting TWO platinum plated pensions after an overpaid, richly expense accounted and underworked career ruining life for both Ontarians and Canadians, and long before he reaches the age of even 65, much less 67 or 68! I would be happy to provide both him, and his boss Spiteful Steve and their buddies like Campbell and run-away to Asia non-premier Christy Clark with full room and board when they are all turfed from their current posh positions, in the gaols that these guys think are so wonderful, if the Canadians and folks of BeeCee wake up and do the right thing and fire their lying asses at the polls. In the case of the Harper Cons, we shouldn't even have to wait for an election, they should be charged with election fraud and the results of last year declared null and void. Actually, we shouldn't have to wait a year to send our unelected premier here in BeeCee to the unemployment roles, but apparently we who live in British Columbia have built up some terrible karma that we are still paying off, or the majority of us are just morons!

UPDATE:

Just in case you don't understand my frustration with Lord Jim's sycophantic idiocy, Boris over at the Galloping Beaver has weighed in on the subject much more elegantly than I can manage.  A couple gems for bait below, but please go on over and get the whole meal.

........If you ask the elderly and the disabled to take jobs, you're going to have to create some criteria about who can actually work and who cannot. Knowing your party, I doubt you'll be consulting medical professionals on that one. Those folks won't give you the answers you want......./snip 

The EI you want to curtail saves people and families by keeping them in communities and among people they know and love. Take those things away and you destroy lives. But then I don't suspect you give two obsolete pennies about people's well-being. What you're doing, whether you frame it that way or not, is destroying the middle-class and creating a nation of corporate serfs "doing what they have to do to get by." This I suspect will please your corporate masters' and China-drunk party leader's desire to turn Canada into a raw materials and energy maquiladora.

(Bolding would be mine - as usual)