I am writing in regards to the Lakeland Mills funding that was collected on behalf of the employees. My husband was an employee, he was working the night of the explosion. We received a letter July 31, 2012 telling us we could apply for funding by August 31, 2012. We didn't because by then we had put all our bills on our line of credit to eliminate the payments we knew we could not meet on employment insurance.
Now we find ourselves in a serious situation where my husband has to go for heart surgery and EI says oh well, now he only qualifies for EI for 15 weeks, not until the end of May like the other men, unless he has the surgey and is ready to go back to work by mid February. Well that isn't going to happen. We have heard of people waiting six months before they can get in for surgery.
So we were hoping now that we have a serious need for the funding some would be available, but I was told it has all been handed out. This feels so unfair. How can they decide all the employees would have had all their issues worked out between July 31 and August 31. If they had divided it up amongst the employees we would have had a bit of a buffer. So this is a lesson for others I guess. Jump on the band wagon immediately. Don't wait until you have a need. It won't be there.
B. Morin
Prince George
