EI protesters: Ignatieff let us down, By Rob Longley, Sun Media

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/CanadaWorld/2009/06/19/pf-9858136.html











(TORONTO) - Andrea Clarke wants to look Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff in the eye and say what he's done to help the unemployed just isn't good enough.

The former quality inspector at an auto parts company that went out of business was among about 80 people who protested outside Ignatieff's constituency office on The Queensway this morning giving the opposition leader an "F" in his efforts to improve employment insurance.

She said Ignatieff promised a showdown with Prime Minister Stephen Harper over the issue, and "so far, he has disappointed us."

The protest was backed by the Good Jobs for All Coalition, which claimed the unemployed can't wait four months before EI is reformed.

While the EI surplus is at $57 billion, only about a third of Ontario's jobless qualify to get it, and less than half of the country's are receiving unemployment benefits, the coalition said.

Ignatieff threatened a general election if Harper didn't provide plans to improve employment insurance, deal with the on-going isotope crisis and shrink the deficit after the recession.

He threatened to vote against the spending estimates and that would have toppled the government.

But the two leaders struck a deal, in part calling for a six-member committee – three from each party – to work on an outline to improve E.I., including Ignatieff's bottom line of lowering the qualification to a flat 360 hours of work in the previous 52 weeks across the country.

"I give you no guarantees that we can get there. But I know in my heart I can look unemployed Canadians in the eye today and say, I've done my darnedest for you," Ignatieff told reporters June 17 after reaching a deal with Harper.

"But we're here to let Michael Ignatieff know his words doesn't hold water anymore," Clarke, a mother of three, said. "I think he went to bed with Stephen Harper. He woke up on the wrong side and he doesn't know who he is.

"I don't think he can look us in the eye because he betrayed us," she said.