Summary of Issue: Benevolent Work

Decision A0076.09 Full Text of Decision A0076.09

The FCA discussed the issue of employment in the context of just cause and determined that a person who quits full time paid employment to take an unpaid volunteer position does not have employment within the meaning of s. 29 of the EIA. The FCA found that the Umpire had committed an error of law by improperly addressing the legal question before him. Following the decisions in Bérubé and Traynor, the Umpire should have identified whether the claimant expected to derive any financial benefit from his volunteer position, and not benefits "of some kind" as found by the Umpire. The FCA found that the benefit received by the claimant, the accumulation of flying hours, was not a financial benefit, actual or eventual, derived from his volunteer position with a flight school. This benefit is inconsistent with the scheme of the EIA, which is to compensate unemployed persons for a loss. Qualifying such activities as "employment" could, according to the FCA, expand the EI system into a subsidy program for informal means of education through volunteering.

Decision 12809 Full Text of Decision 12809

Requested and was refused leave of absence to serve as a volunteer consultant out of Canada. Claim filed when he returned from Costa Rica.