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“It surprised me when she asked for me. It kind of stunned me,” the woman said.

“She told me: ’I came to bring you a form. You fill it out, and then I want to have an interview with you on Wednesday.’ I told her, ’I’ll be there.”’

As with everyone else receiving seasonal benefits, she is being asked to actively seek work in her off-months while awaiting the return to the fish factory.

“All I can do is work in a factory,” she said.

“I’m going everywhere to look for work… There is none.”

A New Brunswick group has taken up the cause of workers like her.

It says these visits from the feds are only adding fuel in a volatile climate, given the government’s EI reforms.

“It’s abusive,” said Alma Breau-Thibodeau, of the Employment Insurance Action Committee In Defence of Workers.

“They’re abusing us like crazy. We all feel targeted by this law… You know it’s gone too far when you’re being checked upon at home.

“We have telephones, you know. And post offices.”

A NDP MP from New Brunswick, Yvon Godin, warned the government to stop the house calls — which he described as “intimidation.”

He said people are angry and in no mood for a visit from the feds.

“I wouldn’t recommend for representatives of the government to go knocking on doors right now. It’s dangerous,” Godin said.

He said it’s wrong for the government to be placing its workers in that position.

A federal workers’ union representative said she had already been concerned for all employees because of the controversy over the changes.