A glitch in the system meant the switch from CERB to EI wasn’t seamless for everyone

When Mollie Jacques signed onto the Service Canada website to check if her Employment Insurance (EI) had come through last week, her heart sank.

The veteran chef got a notice that she’d need to reapply, and that it might take 28 days to start collecting money again.

Two days later, she checked again, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her original application, made in March, had been approved.

“Those were the worst two days of this entire pandemic for me. Not knowing if I’d have any money coming in for a month was just awful,” said Jacques.

Adding insult to injury, Jacques’ final CERB payment was just $500, not the $1,000 she’d been expecting and believed she was entitled to.

Like many in the restaurant industry, Jacques had been collecting the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) since it was introduced in late March. When CERB ended Oct. 3, it was supposed to be a seamless transition to EI for anyone who had been receiving CERB through Service Canada, which administers EI. (Millions of other workers, who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to qualify for EI, were collecting CERB through the Canada Revenue Agency, and were only allowed to apply for the new Canada Replacement Benefit on Oct. 12).

Instead, many workers say they got similar notices when they logged in.

Having eaten through any savings they had, and facing another series of COVID-related restrictions , those notices added an extra level of anxiety when they least needed it.

For sommelier Teressa M. Stone, it was several demoralizing days before the message on her Service Canada account changed.

“At first it said ‘your benefits are done’ and didn’t even give me the option of reapplying. It took well over a week to update to ‘your claim has been approved’ and I still don’t know exactly when the money will come,” said Stone, who is worried about paying her rent.

“It’s been pretty stressful,” Stone said.

A spokesperson for federal social development minister Ahmed Hussen, who’s responsible for Service Canada, said the government is confident the EI program is helping people it’s designed to assist, but acknowledged it might not have been a perfect transition from CERB.

“Our priority is in ensuring Canadians have access to high-quality programs and services they need and expect during these difficult times. We have taken important measures to ensure a seamless transition from the CERB to EI, and are working hard so that every worker who is entitled to benefits can receive them. We sympathize with Canadians who had issues reapplying, and remain committed to providing them with the benefits they are entitled to,” said Hussen spokesperson Jessica Eritou.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were affected by the apparent glitch.

Simao Pires, a cook at the InterContinental Hotel on Bloor Street, had been collecting CERB since being laid off in March. While the transition from CERB to enhanced EI was supposed to be automatic, that didn’t go according to plan for Pires.

“They emailed and said they needed to reconfirm my province of residence. I called to ask them why and they said I needed to reapply. If I hadn’t called and sat on hold for two and a half hours, I wouldn’t have known,” said Pires. Despite the added stress, Pires reapplied and got his first EI payment Wednesday.

Some workers, including waitress Emily Feist, also worries about another change: Under CERB, people could earn up to $1,000 a month while still collecting the benefit. Now, though, it’s back to the EI rule: 50 cents of every dollar earned will be clawed back from the benefit payments.

“Are they going to be clawing back half of anything that I make? Really? That’s the scariest part of this,” said Feist, who took a part-time, minimum wage job while collecting CERB. “I feel like I’m looking off the edge of a cliff and one of these days I’m going to jump off.”

The Canada Replacement Benefit, which is only open to people ineligible to collect EI doesn’t start clawing back earnings until someone makes at least $38,000 per year.

Josh Rubin is a Toronto-based business reporter. Follow him on Twitter: