Description
As a rule, in order to maintain entitlement to Employment Insurance (EI) regular benefits, a claimant must show that they are unemployed, capable of and available for work, at all times.

An active EI regular claimant, who has been assessed to need full-time training, may be given permission to attend full-time training and continue to collect regular EI benefits. Provincial and territorial governments or Indigenous organizations, have been granted this authority , as part of a labour market agreement. The federal government has provided the authority with the expectation that unemployed individuals, assessed to need training, will have the skills needed for labour market participation.

Additional information about EI and courses or training programs is on the Government of Canada website.

Procedure

Referral to Training
To inform Service Canada that permission to attend full-time training has been granted:

• The Authorized official completes the following data fields of the Training Program Information cluster on the LMDA Eligibility screen after the decision to recommend an active regular EI benefit recipient to participate in full-time training is made:
  • Program Name: A text field used to capture the name of the educational/training program.
  • Institution/Provider: A text field used to capture the operating name of the training provider.
  • Program Element: Select the appropriate code table value from the drop down menu.
  • Federal Indicator: Select the appropriate code table value from the drop down menu.
    
    

    Federal Indicator	Description
    LMDA Funded	Select when the individual is recommended to attend a full-time LMDA eligible training activity.
    Feepayer	Select when the individual has been assessed to meet the Feepayer policy and will self-fund the cost of the full-time training activity.

    
    
  • Program Start Date: The date the full-time training commences.
  • Program End Date: The last day the individual attended the full-time training.
• A nightly Mobius report compiles all new and amended transactions. The exchange of information can take up to 2 working days to appear in the federal system.

Change in Participation
To inform Service Canada that a change in participation has transpired:

• Modify the appropriate data fields on the Training Program Information (TPI) cluster section, immediately (as soon as it becomes known) to prevent a delay or disruption of EI benefit payments:
  • Program Start Date: Edit if different
  • Program End Date: Edit if different
  • Reason for Change: Select the most appropriate code table value from the drop down menu that reflects the reason for the change. A "change reason" is mandatory.
    
    

    Change Reason	Description
    Administrative Error	Select to indicate that an administrative error occurred and the training program information has been updated. Start date is only to be changed if training did not commence.
    No Show (never attended)	Select to indicate that the EI recipient did not start training. Modify the program end date located in the TPI cluster of the LMDA Eligibility screen to be the same as the program start date.
    Start/End dates Changed	Select to indicate that the one or both of the training dates have changed for a reason other than no show, cancelled or withdrawal.
    Training Cancelled	Select to indicate that training was cancelled prior to start date. This would include instances where a contract ended or a training provider business closed before program completion. Modify the program end date located in the TPI cluster of the LMDA Eligibility screen to be the same as the program start date.
    Withdrew (after starting training)	Select to indicate that the EI recipient withdrew from training prior to completion and the end date has been updated to reflect the last day of attendance.

Business Rules:

• A Program Start Date must occur on or after the Claim Start date. Claimants who commenced training prior to establishing a claim/being granted permission to attend are not eligible for a recommendation.
• If the Claim End date occurs before the Program Start Date, EI benefits have been exhausted and will not be a financial resource while attending training.
• If the Claim End date occurs within the program dates, the individual may require alternative financial resources to complete the program after the claim is exhausted.

Programs must be full-time and meet the test of similarity to be eligible under the LMDA as a Learner. The test of similarity is not required for full-time self-funded training (Feepayer). Alberta’s authority to recommend training only applies to full-time training and not part-time training. Therefore part-time training is not eligible for a recommendation (do not enter part-time training in the TPI cluster).