Re: “Hospital Workers fight clawback of employment insurance money,” Jan. 4.

The article sets out the concerns of union members who collected employment insurance after they lost their jobs and then received a settlement from the provincial government because they should not have lost their jobs. They now have to pay some of the EI funds back.

They do not want to pay anything back and it was suggested that to do so, while legal, was “morally wrong”.

It is absolutely not morally wrong; rather, it is the right thing to do. If you ask all the other people not working for the government, you will find that they would clearly find it both moral and legal to avoid “double dipping” out of funds supplied by the rest of us.

Employment insurance is just that — insurance pay you when you have no other income. It is entirely appropriate to pay back employment insurance if you later obtain funds you should have had at the beginning. Otherwise you receive more money than you were entitled to.

The source of this money is simply the rest of us. Whether it is EI or a settlement from the provincial government, it is all money from the taxpayers.

In this case, the morally correct thing is to repay funds, which one would not have been entitled to had they received a settlement earlier.

James A. S. Legh

Victoria

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