How did the government create precarious work?  How about with 1 year maternity leave the required employers to fill positions with temporary workers!  Given that both women and men (finally) can take leave, that means 2 temporary positions open up and that means 2 people with precarious employment.  The law of unintended consequences is a butch. 
Then start adding all the other costs that governments have added to employment, starting with Martin raising CPP and EI contributions, Trudeau's higher CPP contributions and is it any wonder why employers are doing their best to keep employment down to the minimum? 
As for your fairyland concept that governments to to "fix" the program, the way to do that is not through more regulations but through a strong market-driven labour market.  Governments have a bad habit of making new rules to fix the problems created by old rules which then need newer rules to fix the problems created by the fix.