Canada Job Grant / A “mystery program” with few fans writes The Guardian (PEI)

Governments in Canada, federal and provincial, have come up with some strange approaches to “job creation” over the years but the latest one from Ottawa really takes the cake. The federal Canada Job Grant program has almost a billion dollars in funding, but no one is using it.

The Job Grant was announced in the spring budget and the Harper government is already spending substantial money on advertising to promote it, but no one seems to know what it is, how it works or who is supposed to benefit. Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter called it “a mystery program.”

Now, people usually love mysteries; the stories of Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler, that sort of thing. But it’s doubtful they have a billion dollars worth of affection for the mystery surrounding the Job Grant. In fact, the Job Grant mystery story is shaping up as more Inspector Clouseau than Philip Marlowe.

The problem is that education and training are under provincial jurisdiction, so even the idea of a federal job training program raises difficulties. Quebec is always leery of any new sally into its public-policy turf and doesn’t look ready to co-operate on this one.

Smaller provinces like those in the Maritimes are turned off because while Ottawa was committing millions to its new program it was cutting funding in other areas.

The Job Grant has a laudable goal, to train 130,000 Canadians every year to enable them to take jobs in businesses and industries that are short of skilled workers. Sounds great, right? The problem from the Maritime perspective is, it doesn’t solve our problem. We have lots of workers but not enough jobs.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Canada Jobs Grant: a “mystery program” with few fans – Columnists – The Guardian.