Undeterred by the Senate scandal, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is quietly forging ahead with its war against good wages.

The target — again — is the Employment Insurance system, a program designed to tide workers over during spells of joblessness.

To those without work, EI is a lifeline that they’ve financed through payroll taxes. To the Conservative government, however, it is an impediment to the smooth functioning of the economy — a program that, by giving jobless workers a brief respite, keeps wages higher than they otherwise would be.

Successive governments have already severely limited the number of jobless eligible for unemployment benefits. Now Ottawa is making it harder for those denied EI to challenge government decisions.

So far, most public attention on the new Social Security Tribunal has focused on the juicy patronage opportunities it offers the government.

When the tribunal is fully staffed, its 74 full-time members will earn between $91,800 and $231,500 a year. (To put this in context, members of the much-maligned Senate receive a basic salary of $135,200.)

Of the 74 tribunal members, 39 are to hear EI cases. The remainder are to handle appeals related to the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security that are currently heard by other part-time panels.

A goodly number of the 48 tribunal members chosen so far are classic patronage appointments — failed Conservative candidates, local Conservative riding association chieftains and Conservative donors.

The New Democrats put the number of Conservative-linked appointments at 10. The Globe and Mail says it’s about 23. The Canadian Press reports that about a third of the appointees have donated money to the Conservatives.

Which is all very interesting.

But the real story is that the new tribunal replaces an EI appeal system which, while also open to patronage, was arguably far fairer.

The old Employment Insurance Referees Board consisted of about 600 appointees. Unlike the new tribunal, all were part-time and, as a result, received far less money. A typical referee might receive $2,400 a year plus expenses.

But the major difference is that the old referees were deliberately chosen to be representative.

For each three-person panel hearing a case, one member would come from a list provided by employers and one from a list provided by workers. The third was chosen by government.

Decisions from these panels could be appealed to a so-called umpire, usually a retired federal court judge.

The new system eliminates both panels and umpires. Decisions are to be made by individual tribunal members acting as adjudicators.

Moreover, these adjudicators will no longer hear cases in person. Instead they will carry on proceedings from their homes either over the phone or online.

The automatic right to appeal an initial decision has been eliminated. Appeals may be made to another division of the same tribunal, but only if it agrees to hear the case.

Many management-side members of the old referee board have been reappointed to the new tribunal. Angella MacEwen, senior economist with the Canadian Labour Congress, says that about 50 labour-side names were also provided by government bureaucrats to cabinet. But so far no one from the labour list has been appointed.

In short, it’s stacked.

Under the Harper Conservatives, EI is becoming a cruel joke. Rules are already so tight that most jobless Canadians don’t qualify. Those who do qualify often find their claims disallowed later by government investigators operating under a kind of quota system.

And now those who want to appeal such actions face a tribunal made up in large part of well-paid Conservative partisans who know perfectly well what the government that appointed them expects.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

. . .

On May 7, I wrote that Jean Chrétien’s government did not involve Canada in George W. Bush’s Iraq War. A reader points out, correctly, that Chrétien sent warships to patrol the Persian Gulf and that a small number of Canadian soldiers took part in the initial U.S. invasion.