Contents:
Unemployment Insurance
Welfare in Canada: Unemployment Insurance
Introduction to Unemployment Insurance
In the early 1970s, the Canadian government greatly expanded the country's Unemployment Insurance (UI) program, which had existed in other forms since 1940. UI became the most widely used Canadian social security program for adults. The program provides assistance to both unemployed and working Canadians as a supplement, with benefits exceeding those in most other developed nations.
Annual costs for the UI program roughly doubled between 1973 and 1994. In 1996 the federal government reformed UI and renamed it Employment Insurance. This new program of federal block grants to provinces and territories gave work incentives to people having difficulty finding desirable full-time jobs by providing wage supplements to part-time workers. It also provided funding for employers to create jobs, subsidies to employers who hired welfare recipients, and job-seeking assistance.” (1)