Employment Insurance (EI)

Decision

[1] The appeal is dismissed. The Tribunal disagrees with the Appellant.

[2] The Appellant hasn’t shown just cause (in other words, a reason the law accepts) for leaving her job when she did. The Appellant didn’t have just cause because she had reasonable alternatives to leaving. This means she is disqualified from receiving Employment Insurance (EI) benefits.

Overview

[3] The Appellant left her permanent full-time job to stay in the same job on a casual basis on August 15, 2023 and applied for EI benefits. The Canada Employment Insurance Commission (Commission) looked at the Appellant’s reasons for leaving. It decided that she voluntarily left (or chose to quit) her full-time job without just cause, so it wasn’t able to pay her benefits.

[4] I must decide whether the Appellant has proven that she had no reasonable alternative to leaving her full-time job.

[5] The Commission says that the Appellant could have asked her employer to work only the hours she had available to work while pursuing her studies. Instead, the Commission says that the Appellant simply made the personal decision to leave the full-time job.

[6] The Appellant disagrees and states that she never left her job; she simply went from full-time to casual.

[7] The Appellant also states that her training was approved by Service Canada. As a “long tenured worker”, she met the criteria to participate in the Lifelong Learning Initiative set up by the government to support Canadian workers in furthering their education. She had understood that this meant that she would be able to get Employment Insurance benefits.

Matter I have to consider first

[8] After the hearing, I asked the Commission to clarify the information that the Appellant relied on that led to her belief that she was approved for training by Service Canada and that this would lead to her getting EI benefits.^{Footnote 1}

[9] The Commission answered promptly; the document was coded as GD9 and is part of the Record for this hearing.

Issue

[10] Is the Appellant disqualified from receiving benefits because she voluntarily left her job without just cause?

[11] To answer this, I must first address the Appellant’s voluntary leaving. I then have to decide whether the Appellant had just cause for leaving.

Analysis

The parties agree that the Appellant voluntarily left

[12] I accept that the Appellant voluntarily left her full-time job. The Appellant agrees that she went from full-time to casual on August 15, 2023. I see no evidence to contradict this.

The parties don’t agree that the Appellant had just cause

[13] The parties don’t agree that the Appellant had just cause for voluntarily leaving her job when she did.

[14] The law says that you are disqualified from receiving benefits if you left your job voluntarily and you didn’t have just cause.^{Footnote 2} Having a good reason for leaving a job isn’t enough to prove just cause.

[15] The law explains what it means by “just cause.” The law says that you have just cause to leave if you had no reasonable alternative to quitting your job when you did. It says that you have to consider all the circumstances.^{Footnote 3}

[16] It is up to the Appellant to prove that she had just cause.^{Footnote 4} She has to prove this on a balance of probabilities. This means that she has to show that it is more likely than not that her only reasonable option was to leave her full-time job. When I decide whether the Appellant had just cause, I have to look at all of the circumstances that existed when the Appellant quit.

[17] The Appellant says that she left her full-time job because on March 28, 2023, she received a communication from the Student Services Representative at the College where she was following her course. The email stated that the Appellant was falling behind in her course work, and that not catching up might put her course funding in jeopardy.^{Footnote 5}

[18] As a result, the Appellant asked her employer on May 25, 2023 if she could take a short leave of absence to get caught up, or what other options were available. She was told that this was not possible, as they were short staffed.

[19] On May 31, 2023, the Appellant informed her employer that she would need to resign her full-time position and go to a casual position.

[20] The Appellant says that she had no reasonable alternative to leaving at that time because the employer had refused her request for a leave of absence.

[21] The Commission says that the Appellant didn’t have just cause, because she had reasonable alternatives to leaving when she did. Specifically, it says that the Appellant could have tried to secure employment with the hours that she was available to work.

[22] I find that the Appellant made the personal decision to quit a full-time job to have the flexibility to devote more time to her studies. Going to a casual position gave her the choice to work hours that were suitable for her and her course work.

[23] I accept that the Appellant tried to get a leave of absence from her work and that this was refused.^{Footnote 6} However, there is no evidence that the Appellant explored other options other than demoting herself to a casual position. For example, there is no evidence that when she left her full-time position, the Appellant had formally requested to work part-time in her full-time position for the time left in her course.

[24] The Appellant testifies that Service Canada employees misled her. She was led to believe that because she is a long-tenured employee, whose training was previously approved by Service Canada, she could quit her job and concentrate on her studies.

[25] I find that it is more likely than not that the Appellant misunderstood what it meant to have one’s training approved by Service Canada. In its response to the Tribunal’s enquiry, the Commission explained that the Appellant meets the criteria for participation in the Lifelong Learning Initiative, and as such was referred to attend the course from September 17, 2023 to January 19, 2024.^{Footnote 7}

[26] The Commission goes on to explain that this does not mean that Service Canada authorizes the Appellant to quit a job to pursue training.

[27] As a result, I agree with the Commission that the Appellant placed herself in a position of unemployment. Caselaw is consistent in saying that leaving a job to pursue educational goals is not just cause under the Act.^{Footnote 8}

[28] While I agree that choosing to pursue more training is laudable, the cost of such a withdrawal from the workforce should not be imposed on all the other contributors to the EI program.

[29] While it is true that in some instances, a person might be authorized to pursue training while in receipt of EI benefits, the authorization must be obtained prior to embarking on a course of studies. In the Appellant’s case, authorization was provided many months after she started her course, and after she had left her full-time job.

[30] Accordingly, I find that the Appellant returned to school and left her employment before she obtained authorization by a designated authority. The general rule that by voluntarily leaving her full-time employment to devote more time to her studies without obtaining prior approval from a designated authority therefore applies. The Appellant did not prove that she had just cause under s. 29(c) of the Act.^{Footnote 9}

Conclusion

[31] I find that the Appellant is disqualified from receiving benefits.

[32] This means that the appeal is dismissed.