ExpanDrive

A friend of mine writes about unemployment insurance (which Canadians call “Employment Insurance”, or “the pogey”) in Newfoundland:

Out of curiosity, I wandered into an employment assistance office one day, and began asking a friendly lady who worked there about the specifics of their EI [Employment Insurance] program. She told me unabashedly, but in a quiet voice, “Everybody around here collects in the winter, and then goes and works on top of it. I mean everybody. I even used to collect and then work part-time here in the office. It’s just part of life, how we get by. But don’t tell my boss, I’m not sure if she does that.” In Newfoundland, it seems that pogey is in bed with fishing, and that seems to be fine.