Income support is provided in a way that reinforces work.
Employment assistance helps maintain a sustainable employment insurance system by helping unemployed persons to be productive participants in the labour force. The changes to the employment insurance system in this enactment constitute a comprehensive modernization of the system. They reform many of the core features of the system, introduce a number of new elements and make a number of technical amendments to improve fairness, administration and compliance. The major changes phase in over an extended period ending in 2001. The insurance system is changed from one based on weeks of work, with a weekly minimum and maximum on insurance coverage, to a system based on total earnings and total hours worked, starting from the first dollar and first hour.