Government has been no help

I should have mentioned this months back, but I'd like to post this out so other people know as well the trouble I've had even trying to collect unemployment insurance (EI) from the Canadian government.

Now I left BioWare May 24th and did receive severance and would have received unemployment insurance...

If I didn't do any hours a week of work on a zero profit side business.

Thats right, even though I'm getting paid nothing for my business, in fact I'm accruing a fair bit of startup loss, I am not eligible for EI simply because of the number of hours a week I work on games.

It doesn't even matter how many resumes I post out per week. (And I haven't posted out resumes after asking about this.) It matters how many hours I work at a job that pays nothing currently.

Now I would get some money if I agreed to sign up to a full time 6 month goverment course on how to start a small business. Except for me learning would be sparse in those 6 months, and I still wouldn't have started my flash learning, let alone coded everything I have up until now.

So people ask me the obvious question:

Why didn't you just lie about it?

You mean aside from being illegal? Well I don't like to lie about this sort of thing to the government, especially being so public about it. Its the kind of thing that comes back to bite you later. And I don't like that either. As well I don't think anyone protests against this, they usually just lie. It's so much easier. And unfortunately nothing ever gets fixed.

Any honest system that puts people into a situation where cheating or lying is the best and most common recourse is a pretty screwed up system. As a game designer designing systems all my life I at least know this.

I can't really blame one Canadian political party either. Every one thats been in power has contributed to this.

If I could opt out of EI in the future, just like you can opt out of any other crappy insurance that lets you down, I would do so. But I don't even have that choice, and nor does anyone else. So thats what makes it really wrong.

So thats the story. I'm doing ok, but I do have to publish something soon. Even something small. I literally am "small business" right now. And sadly the government has been no help.