An open letter to
Michel Samson
Member of the Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly for Cape Breton-Richmond
Minister of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism
(response, from Kelly Regan, below)
and
Jason Kenney
Member of Parliament for Calgary Southeast
Minister of Employment and Social Development:
Greetings,
I am presently residing in Sherbrooke, part of Very Rural Nova Scotia. Of course, I don’t have to stay here, and I didn’t even have to come here. But it works very well for me, except for the tricky problem of income.
Sherbrooke Village recently posted an advertisement on the Service Canada Job Bank seeking an archival assistant. I would have applied for this position, even though it’s temporary – the work seems interesting, it would leverage my IT skills, I’d learn something, and it would be a pickup of both money and experience. And it’s local.
But the position requires people to have received EI in past 3 years, so I’m ineligible. It’s maddening; it just seems arbitrary and unfair. I’m no longer a student, so I don’t qualify for the student positions (with the Village or, for example, the Eastern Counties Regional Library) that come across my radar either. When I was a student, I thought jobs reserved for students were great things. Now the shoe’s on the other foot and it hurts like heck.