Denise Savoie

NDP SUCCEEDS IN SECURING SUMMER JOB PROGRAM FOR STUDENTS, COMMUNITIES IN NEED

Concerns remain over restricted criteria in repackaged program

OTTAWA – Canada’s non-profit groups and small local businesses who rely on federal funding to provide quality summer jobs for students are now able to apply for 2007 funding, thanks to a strong grassroots and parliamentary campaign led by the NDP against Conservative cuts.

“This Conservative government unfairly kept students and community employers waiting to hear about summer jobs funding,” said Denise Savoie (Victoria), the NDP Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training Advocate. “At last they have listened to the NDP’s calls to ensure that students and employers in greatest need will have priority.”

Two months behind schedule, the re-branded “Canada Summer Jobs” released its call for applications from potential employers on Friday. The Service Canada web site has on-line application forms, which are due in less than four weeks, on March 30.

The federal NDP caucus, led by Savoie, Social Policy Critic Tony Martin (Sault Ste. Marie) and Youth Critic Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina), has argued persistently that the cuts must not negatively impact the non-profit organizations, community groups, and small local businesses that provide the overwhelming majority of student jobs through the program.

“The Conservatives always answered that cutting the program by more than half was justified because large corporate employers would have hired students anyway,” said Chow. “We argued that the program is crucial to providing important community services. Apparently, they heard us.”

According to government sources, only $11 million of the anticipated $55 million will be cut from the program, all of which will be from subsidies to large corporate employers.

Nevertheless, some non-profit employers have expressed concern that new, restricted criteria – such as certifying that the summer jobs would not be created without federal funding – could serve to exclude them from this year’s funding.

“Creating new, unduly burdensome criteria and unreasonably tight deadlines are tactics we have seen used against women’s and literacy groups,” said Savoie, “Exacting accountability without showing any accountability in return has become a Conservative hallmark, and it reveals a profound disrespect for the time, effort and work of the non-profit sector.”