The Government of Canada has approved legislation – the Fairness for the Self-Employed Act – to provide Employment Insurance (EI) maternity, parental/adoption, sickness and compassionate care benefits to self-employed Canadians on a voluntary basis. This legislation will allow the self-employed to opt into the EI program in January 2010, while benefits will start being paid [...]

The Government of Canada has introduced some proposed legislation under the Fairness for the Self-Employed Act which could provide the opportunity for self-employed individuals to access many of the same employment insurance benefits as employees. The legislation, recently announced by the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, The Honourable Diane Finley, forms part of [...]

About 11,300 more British Columbians collected employment insurance in September than August, leading to the first increase in EI rolls since June, according to data released from Statistics Canada Tuesday. The number of people in B.C. receiving benefits rose 12.8% to 99,360 in September, up from 88,080 in August. StatsCan reported that 15 of B.C.’s [...]