Mike Kelloway on EI Extension and Seniors' Pensions

CHNE produces weekly interviews with Cape Breton – Canso MP Mike Kelloway where community members can send in their questions. Today we talk about changes to EI as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) comes to an end and issues with Old Age pensions.

The federal government announced it will discontinue CERB as of September 27th. Those who still need financial support due to COVID-19 will be transferred to the Employment Insurance program. But several seasonal workers who depend on EI every winter will not be able to qualify this year. Local tourism employees who’ve worked less than usual or lost their job because of the pandemic will not be earning enough insurable hours to qualify. They wanted to know if EI eligibility would be changed to include them.

Mike Kelloway said he’s expecting the government to make those modifications. “We’re of the understanding, myself and my office, in working with Employment [and Social] Development Canada, is that we should be hearing an announcement soon around nuances and changes that will be made to EI, that will have what we’ve been told, a very significant impact for seasonal workers,” he said. “People that we talked to said, ‘Mike, we know there a lot of seasonal workers in Cape Breton – Canso, we believe you’re going to like some of the changes that have been made.’ I said, can you tell me what they are? They said, ‘no, it’s kept with confidentiality.’” He said he’s expecting an announcement this month.

The second question in the segment came from a local senior who wanted to know why there’s been a $5 decrease in her pension. Kelloway said he had other constituents contact his office with similar issues. “A few of those cases, we’ve taken on because there seemed to be some anomalies there,” he said. “So, we’re working on those. In some cases, again - it’s individualized, a senior may have worked and that may see the impact on a deduction but that’s not the cases that I’m referring to that come to my office.”

The MP invites anyone who is seeing similar changes in their pension to contact his office directly. “If the government of Canada owes a senior a cent, I want to get that cent back to them, if there is a mistake or there is an oversight or whatever the case may be,” he said. “And if it’s not, I want to know why. I want the seniors and myself to know why so we can break it down.”