Photo: Jason Kenney announces changes to EI eligibility in Iqaluit

Jason Kenney, the minister responsible for Employment and Social Development Canada, with Nunavut MP Leona Aglukkaq at a press conference held Feb, 22 in Iqaluit. As in earlier visits this week to Whitehorse and Yellowknife, Kenney announced changes to the way that Employment Insurance eligibility will be calculated for EI claimants living in the three territories. Until now, the unemployment rate in each of the three territories was assumed to be 25 per cent. Now, EI will use the actual unemployment rate to determine eligibility. The 2011 National Household Survey gives an unemployment rate of 17.9 per cent for Nunavut and 9.2 per cent for Iqaluit. Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey now estimates an unemployment rate of 13.1 per cent for Nunavut, as of January 2014. A Feb. 22 ESDC press release says Iqaluit’s unemployment rate “was estimated” at 5 per cent. ESDC does not cite a source for that estimate or explain the discrepancy between that and earlier numbers. Read more later on Nunatsiaqonline.ca. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)