Frank Stanford is one of my favorite radio hosts, but… God love ’im… he’s out to lunch on his defence of the flawed EI program. On Friday, Frank said:

Essentially the [CTF] says that any money working Canadians pay in the form of employment insurance premiums should accrue for our personal benefit. At retirement...if we have worked our entire lives, never having been a drain on the system, we should be refunded those dollars.

I can see the appeal.  Some people think of E-I as a regular source of income...they're on and off the dole constantly. Others take pride in never collecting from it, and they'd like to be rewarded.

But that's the way it's going to be with any INSURANCE plan.  Do you expect to be refunded all your ICBC premiums when you stop driving?  Come on. Be serious.

At the same time, government needs to understand that, as a stand alone insurance plan, E-I is not a pit of money available to be dipped into for general government expenditures.  Using it as a backhanded tax has got to stop and never be repeated.  On that point the Taxpayers Federation has a legitimate complaint.

Frank was responding to our proposal to radically change EI, but there is a significant flaw in his argument against it: EI, as it currently stands, does not work like a proper insurance plan does.

If EI were truly run like an insurance program, people at low risk of losing their jobs – like, say, government (which powers a huge part of the Victoria economy) – would pay far less than those who are in high-turnover professions. People living in regions with higher unemployment rates would pay more than those living in more stable regions.

Frank’s comparison to ICBC is head-scratching. If ICBC ran like EI, it wouldn't matter if you were a 60 year old grandmother who had a 1986 Oldsmobile that you drove to the corner store or back, or if you were a 19 year old punk with a souped-up Ferrari, had caused eight accidents and had recently crashed into a bus full of nuns while driving drunk. Grandma and the punk both have a car (job), both get insurance and both pay the exact same premium – that’s how EI works.

And on the collection side, if you were in an accident, whether ICBC would fix or replace your car depends on what cars were for sale in your area – another quirk of EI. Your $100,000 Lamborghini is smashed up, but there's loads of used 2001 Chevy Cavaliers for sale in your area, so sorry, no payout. But if you drove your old station wagon off a bridge while texting, and there wasn't a used car dealer for miles, you'd get a brand new Cadillac delivered to your door.

EI is an insurance program? Come on. Be serious.