Canadians who have gone weeks without benefits because of issues with their EI applications are struggling to fix the problem because they cannot get through on the designated government phone lines.
There were times this month when Miranda Petrossi and her boyfriend were working four phones at once — calling Service Canada’s employment insurance information line over and over, for hours on end, desperately trying to find someone who could tell her why her EI application had been denied after she lost her job due to the pandemic.
Petrossi is one of many Canadians who have gone weeks without benefits because of problems with their EI applications — problems they’re struggling to sort out now because they can’t get anyone on the phone.
“I haven’t had a paycheque since March 15,” said Petrossi, who worked as an early childhood educator for the YMCA in Oakville, Ont., until COVID-19 shut it down. “I potentially may not have a job until September and I don’t know how much longer I can continue going like this.”
Most of the Canadians caught in this situation applied for EI because they were laid off before the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) was announced on March 25, or because they were under the impression that EI applications would be shifted over to the CERB program anyway.
Busy signals
And they’ve been told they can’t simply drop their EI applications now and apply for CERB instead. Social media sites are full of posts from people voicing similar complaints and CBC itself has received dozens of emails about the problem.
Many of those reports are from people complaining of constant busy signals on the EI line, which is getting swamped by thousands of calls from anxious, unemployed Canadians. Others describe getting past a marathon of menu options and inputting their social insurance numbers — only to be told to call back later because call volumes are too high.
Employment and Social Development Canada says the EI call centre is experiencing an unprecedented volume of calls and it acknowledged that’s aff