From the Government of Canada, November 2019
If you are an employer who provides your employees with a short-term disability plan and your plan meets certain requirements, you may be entitled to pay your Employment Insurance (EI) premiums at a rate that is lower than the standard employer rate of 1.4 times the employees’ EI premiums.
On January 1, 2017, the EI waiting period was reduced from two weeks to one week. To align with the one-week waiting period, a regulatory amendment was made to reduce the elimination period standard for short-term disability plans to a maximum of seven consecutive days (from 14 days), effective January 1, 2017.
To mitigate the impact of these changes, employers with existing qualifying plans that were in place prior to January 1, 2017 and which no longer meet the new standard; the Government has put in place a four-year transitional period (from January 1, 2017 – January 2, 2021) to provide affected employers time to make adjustment to their short-term disability plan to meet the new standard.
At the end of the transitional period, all affected employers’ short-term disability plans will need to be in compliance with the amended elimination period standard, in order to retain their premium reduction.
To read the full notice please visit: https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/ei/ei-list/ei-employers/premium-reduction-program.html
For the full guide: https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/ei/ei-list/reports/reduction-program.html
