Hi Folks,

I just completed a four month contract flying as a medivac captain from a remote mining camp in the Yukon and I'm wondering if anyone has experience with how standby hours are accounted for with respect to EI? I was stationed 24/7 in the remote camp on standby. All of the employees of the mining camp were getting 12 hours a day.

In my case I was paid a daily rate, but it looks like the employer is only crediting 8 hours a day towards EI. This puts me at a slight disadvantage after being laid off as I'm just under the wire for applying for EI.

Does anyone have any experience with a scenario like this?

Many thanks,

Bruce

On call hours don't count as duty time in the eyes of TC. Perhaps you should count yourself lucky to get even 8 hours per day.

ragbagflyer wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2019 10:45 am On call hours don't count as duty time in the eyes of TC. Perhaps you should count yourself lucky to get even 8 hours per day.

They don’t count as off time either though.

Most Medevac companies are desperate for pilots. Why would you need to apply for EI? In today’s market there should be next to 0 pilots on EI.

I hope this sounds more supportive than mean but I think ant is right here.

EI seems like a trick. I stopped applying for it a long time ago. It felt like too much hassle. I consider it another layer of taxes. Since around 1996 it slowly became much easier to just get another job.

Good thing too. I got married in 2000. That's expensive.

Beefitarian wrote: ↑Sat Oct 12, 2019 7:06 am I hope this sounds more supportive than mean but I think ant is right here.

EI seems like a trick. I stopped applying for it a long time ago. It felt like too much hassle. I consider it another layer of taxes. Since around 1996 it slowly became much easier to just get another job.

Good thing too. I got married in 2000. That's expensive.

EI literally takes five minutes to apply for online now.

But yeah, if you’re flying medevacs, keep flying. You’re obviously hireable.

If you can go flying, do it. In the bad old days, sometime during the mid/late last century, there was NOTHING going on in the winter, and EI was nice. In fact, I never worked full time as a pilot during winter, and applied everywhere. It is still not the easiest way to go through life, but it is better than it was for a lot of reasons.