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COVID - Employment Insurance (EI). Zhou v. Canada (Attorney General)
In Zhou v. Canada (Attorney General) (Fed CA, 2024) the Federal Court of Appeal considered the difficult interaction between the EI 'regular' provisions and those of the COVID EI Emergency Response Benefit:[4] The provisions applicable to this application relate to entitlements to employment insurance (EI) benefits and employment insurance emergency response benefits (EI ERB) and are set out in the Employment Insurance Act, S.C. 1996, c. 23 (EI Act) and the Employment Insurance Regulations, S.O.R./96-332 (EI Regulations). The relevant provisions are numerous and complex and are therefore set out in the Appendix to these reasons.
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A. Did the Appeal Division reasonably conclude that the applicant was entitled to EI ERB as opposed to regular EI benefits in respect of her first claim?
[29] Turning more specifically to the first issue, the applicant argues that she was not entitled to EI ERB by virtue of paragraph 153.9(1)(a) of the EI Act because she was not a Canadian resident and that she ought to have received 36 weeks of regular EI benefits under her first claim. She contends that it was unreasonable for the Appeal Division to conclude otherwise.
[30] I disagree.
[31] As the Appeal Division noted in its decision, paragraph 153.9(1)(a) of the EI Act is not the only provision of relevance. By virtue of the combined effect of section 153.1310, paragraphs 153.9(1)(b), 153.5(2)(b), and subsection 153.5(3) of the EI Act, the benefits the applicant received, which were originally assessed as regular EI benefits under Part I of the EI Act, are deemed to have been EI ERB. Moreover, the Appeal Division reasonably applied subsections 153.8(1), (5) and (6) of the EI Act to end the applicant’s EI ERB benefit period on October 3, 2020.
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