Is it illegal or reprehensible for a person to profit from the benefits of unemployment insurance by paying premiums for a certain period of the year?

Canada (Federal), Canada

The following excerpt is from Les Fenêtres Enerco Inc. v. M.N.R., 2004 TCC 394 (CanLII):

In another decision prior to the decision above, Thibeault v. Canada, [1998] T.C.J. No. 690, Tardif J. explained this matter as follows at paragraphs 26 and 29: The unemployment insurance scheme is a social program whose aim is to support those who lose a real job. It is definitely not a scheme under which it suffices to pay premiums for a certain period of the year in order to have automatic entitlement to benefits. . . . Of course, it is neither illegal nor reprehensible to organize one's affairs so as to profit from the social program that is the unemployment insurance scheme, subject to the express condition that nothing be misrepresented, disguised or contrived and that the payment of benefits occur as a result of events over which the beneficiary has no control. Where the size of the salary bears no relation to the economic value of the services rendered, where the beginning and end of word [sic] periods coincide with the end and the beginning of the payment period and where the length of the work period also coincides with the number of weeks required to requalify, very serious doubts arise as to the legitimacy of the employment contract. Where the coincidences are numerous and improbable, there is a risk of giving rise to an inference that the parties agreed to an artificial arrangement to enable them to profit from the benefits.

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