hebert

Chantal Hebert has a dy-no-mite column today explaining why Harper was so happy to punt the question of EI reform to the blue-ribbon panel. I thought the intervention by the western premiers was interesting, and halfway welcome. On the one hand, I agree entirely with Gordon Campbell’s assessment: we already have an equalization program, and EI should not be used to prop up economically stagnant parts of the country. But then he turned around and proposed a dual national standard for EI qualification: One for urban areas, another for rural areas that are dependent on declining resource industries.