A Pictou County widow says she's fighting for the rights of terminally ill patients to have access to Employment Insurance benefits, if they are eligible.
Kathy MacNaughton lost her husband, David Fraser, in August 2014 after a cancer diagnosis just eight months earlier. MacNaughton says her husband went on EI, but sick benefits only last 15 weeks.
By then, his condition was terminal.
“He had a claim of 45 weeks, so he still had 30 weeks of unemployment and he was cut off,” says MacNaughton. “They said he wasn't ready, willing and able to work. That's where the injustice comes.”
That's why MacNaughton has started "David's Cause," which includes an online petition.
“I promised him that I would somehow change this law, that anybody in our situation that we were in would be able to draw the EI until they died, if they were eligible,” MacNaughton says.
She says an official with Employment and Social Development Canada has told MacNaughton that EI sickness benefits are intended to compliment a range of other supports available for longer term illnesses. Any proposed changes would have wide ranging impact, and careful consideration would need to be given before that could happen.
Fraser's EI benefits went from $1,600 a month down to $850 in CPP. MacNaughton says they were lucky she had work insurance to let her stay home to take care of her husband.
She's now fighting for others who may not be that lucky.
“A terminal person will never, ever draw unemployment again. Give them the decency to die, knowing that they supported their family until their death,” says MacNaughton.
Her goal is to travel to Ottawa to plead her case, and her husband’s cause in person.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Dan MacIntosh.
