You asked for it and now you are finally going to have it - special Employment Insurance benefits for the 2.6 million self-employed Canadians.

The federal government introduced new rules last week that would allow a self-employed - a proprietor or individuals in a partnership - to opt into the EI program in order to receive special benefits.

These are the maternity benefits (15 weeks maximum), parental/adoptive benefits (35 weeks maximum), sickness benefits (15 weeks maximum) and compassionate care (six weeks maximum).

To appreciate the new special EI benefits for the self-employed, it's best to review the ABCs of the EI program.

The EI program is funded by, and provides benefits to, workers only. As a worker, you are eligible to receive regular EI benefits if you lose your job through no fault of your own, i.e., laid-off; and you can't find another job and you are available for and able to work. The current maximum benefit is $477 per week, for a maximum of 50 weeks, for NWT and Nunavut workers.

Workers also have to meet a minimum employment period. In both territories, because we are considered the employment basket-case in the country with a high 25 per cent unemployment rate, workers have to have worked 420 hours (about 12 full-time weeks), to qualify for regular benefits.

This contrast with workers in Regina and Saskatoon, with a low unemployment rate of about five per cent, that require 700 hours of employment to receive maximum benefit of 41 weeks.

The EI program isn't just about regular EI benefits. Other benefits include maternal and parental benefits if you're pregnant or caring for your newborn or adopted child. It also includes sickness benefits if you are unable to work due to sickness, injuries, or quarantine. And it includes compassionate care benefits if you stop work temporarily to look after a gravely ill family member.

There's also the Extended Employment Insurance and Training Incentive (EEITI) and the Severance Investment for Training Initiative (SITI) for workers who have paid EI premiums for years and have made limited use of the regular benefits. For more EI info, go to http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/menu/eihome.shtml.

The new EI rules don't allow the self-employed to opt in and qualify for the full range of EI benefits. For example, the new rules don't allow the self-employed, who sign up, to ever qualify for regular EI benefits available to laid-off workers.

The special benefits available to the self-employed are restricted to the maternity, parental/adoptive, sickness and compassionate care benefits.

You can opt in starting in January 2010 and collect one year later. Therefore you can access the special benefits in January 2011 if you sign up in January 2010.

The annual EI cost is approximately $730. Before you jump in, you should read the fine print.

While any self-employed can sign up, the special benefits are only paid if you have earned a minimum of $6,000 in self-employed profit in the previous calendar year.

It would be useless to join if your self-employment profit is, say, predicted to be $5,000 over the next few years. You can opt out at the end of any tax year as long as you never claimed benefits.

Once you received benefits, it's Hotel California for you - 'you can check out but you can never leave' - because you will have to continue to contribute as long as you are self-employed.