It's a lack of an economy meaning that there's a lot of seasonal work and working seasonal requires a decent government salary to make it through the off-season.
Something like Harper dipping into the EI funds to ensure he didn't run a deficit for example, would have been obscene in the Maritimes as a lot workers have paid their insurance and depend on it to get through their dry season.
There's a lot of monopolies in the Maritimes, which forces a lot of people into either seasonal work or government work. The French part of New Brunswick, for example suffered deeply when Harper cancelled the Long Gun Registry.
Never would the rest of the country have even dreamed that the Long Gun Registry was a make-work project for the French Part of New Brunswick and Harper had to scramble for a reason to re-open that call centre lest he ruin a few towns.
EI isn't receiving free shit, it's getting a return on your insurance payments. It's analogous to getting a new car after a car accident or flood.
The Maritimes fear that a CPC government would cut their make-work government jobs and even worse, reduce the period for which one could receive EI and loot it like it was tax dollars.