Boards of Referees Policy and Administration Pursuant to section 111 of the Employment Insurance Act and section 78 of the Regulations

4. APPLICATION

4.1 Board members

4.1.1 Determination of need for Board members

Under subsection 78(1) of the EI Regulations, all members are to be scheduled for hearings in rotation. To ensure the independence and integrity of the Boards of Referees, Clerks of the Board who schedule hearings should adhere to this regulation. Similarly, chairpersons will also be scheduled for hearings in rotation. Acceptable reasons for departing from this principle when scheduling hearings are the following:

(a) a chairperson or panel member is not available;

(b) the original Board must be reconvened due to an adjournment or rehearing; if it is impossible to reconvene the original Board, the case will have to be heard in its entirety by a newly constituted Board;

(c) there is a need to have a Board fluent in both official languages in order to respect language rights.

In such circumstances, the next appropriate Board member on the respective list will be called. However, the name of the Board member not called will be retained and called for the next session.

Chairpersons and Board members must commit to being available for two sittings per month. The following schedule takes this factor into account and provides a guideline to determine the number of chairpersons and Board members required by a Board Centre:

Monthly number of daily sessions per Board Centre (last 12 month average)	Number of chairpersons, employer and insured persons' representatives
1-4	2
5-6	3
7-8	4
9-10	5

To allow for a back-up, the minimum number of chairpersons, employer and employee representatives in any Board Centre will be two (2).

In order to deal with exceptional needs, the Minister may, at his discretion, create additional positions for chairpersons. Similarly, the Commissioner for Workers and the Commissioner for Employers may, at their discretion, appoint varying numbers of members to the appropriate panel.

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