Music and The State of The World

       I am growing very concerned over the possible changes regarding unemployment insurance. First of all, EI, is an insurance policy I pay into and should be treated as such. I am a union member, it is within the constitution of my union that I do not apply my trade secrets to work outside of my union. This is essential to my union membership and is something I strongly believe in. If I am forced to take work, using my skills, outside of my union in order to collect EI (which I pay an Insurance premium on every single pay cheque I get), my union membership would be placed in jeoprady. Now, that being said, the union holds the jurisdiction on the high paying, good jobs for the work that I do in the area that I live. Without my union membership my entire quality of life for me and my family would be severely damaged. It is also very important to note that the work I do is contract work, very important contract work too I might add. Contract work is extremely important in this country in order to maintain and build the infrastructure our country needs in order to operate. Jobs in my field are almost always on a short term basis. If people are being, shall I say forced out of this work, due to worrying if they would be able to collect EI upon the completion of a contract, then our entire economy would suffer greatly. So that being said, if I had to chose between collecting EI and maintaining my Union membership, the choice would be easy, I would chose my union membership, however I would still have to pay insurance premiums for something I would never be able to use???

     I would like this government to remove any changes to EI from the current budget. If changes are required, I as a Canadian citizen, would like to see it done outside of the “omnibus” budget bill. This budget goes way outside of what a countries budget bill should do. EI is not a budget item because EI is not funded by the government, EI is funded by the people of this country on their weekly pay cheques. Any changes to EI should be properly discussed by the appropriate parliamentary comittee and consultations be made with the people who actually fund this program, the Canadian citizens.  

Regards,

Chris Wylde

Kincardine, Ontario