#1
Canada Job Grant notably different from
take it or leave it offer
CBC – Sat, 1 Mar, 2014 8:19 AM EST
An agreement in principle over the Canada Job Grant was
made possible because Ottawa's final offer was notably different from the take
it or leave it grant sprung on the provinces during last year's federal
budget, says one of the ministers who spent the last few months
negotiating face to face with Employment Minister Jason Kenney.
"The government's final offer is significantly
different from the unilateral announcement the government made without
consultation in last year's federal budget," Shirley Bond, B.C.'s minister
of jobs, tourism, and skills, told CBC News in an interview Friday
afternoon.
While concerns over the grant remain, the provinces feel
with the exception of Quebec, they have come far enough in their negotiations
that each provincial government can now finalize the details of the program on
a one on one basis with Kenney.
"There's a pretty strong consensus that there has been
enough movement that this is the time now to move to the bilateral
discussions," said Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Friday.
Kenney used a speech he gave to an audience gathered at
the Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa on Friday to confirm there was an
agreement with all provinces and territories except Quebec, as CBC News
reported yesterday.
"I am pleased to announce that we have arrived at an
agreement in principle with 12 provincial governments and territories on their
delivery of the Canada Job Grant," Kenney said.
Kenney welcomed the news saying "I believe this is
good news for unemployed Canadians, it's good news for taxpayers who will get
better bang for their buck, it's good news for the economy because we'll
increase the private sector investment in skills development."
The provinces fought hard to negotiate changes to Ottawa's
plan to "minimize the losses" of a program they did not want in the
first place.
Kenney sealed the deal by making several concessions, which
he took to cabinet for approval.
The Canada Job Grant will be phased in incrementally over
four years, allowing provinces to allocate a greater proportion of the
Labour Market Agreements for existing programs to train vulnerable workers.
Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger said, "10 per cent
of the existing LMA will now be shifted towards the job grant. So in the
first year, provinces will have to find 10 per cent to look after the programs
that serve vulnerable people."
The provinces will have to find an additional 10 per cent in
each of the first four years, up to 40 per cent. "That's the
challenge," Selinger said during a joint news conference
with Wynne on Friday.
However, the provinces will have the choice to take
those funds from the Labour Market Agreements, the Labour Market
Development Agreements, or a source of their own choosing.
It was also revealed today that Kenney has agreed to let the
provinces review the program two years after its implementation, a request the
provinces made in their final counter offer dated Jan.28 which was obtained by
Radio-Canada.
"There will be a review of the Canada Job Grant by
December 2015," Selinger said on Friday. This will allow the
provinces to make changes as necessary in order to ensure the grant is
meeting the needs of those looking for jobs and the employers who are paying to
train them.
Kenney also removed the cost-matching requirement for the
provinces, leaving Ottawa to fund up to $10,000 of each individual grant with
employers kicking in up to $5,000.
And even there, Kenney gave small businesses with 50
employees or less greater flexibility by allowing them to put up only 15 per cent
of the cost of the grant with "cash or in-kind contributions."
Provinces will also have until July 1 to implement the
grant, an extra three months to get the program up-and-running from the
original proposal.
As the provinces start working to finalize the renewal of
bilateral Labour Market Agreements which are set to expire on March 31, several
concerns with the Canada Job Grant remain.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, who was also in Ottawa for
the Manning Conference, said he liked the grant but was concerned
businesses in his province would not be able to use it.
"We like the principle of employers being involved in
training, we like that part of the job grant — we always have. But in our
economy, where we have basically full employment… we need basic skills, we need
to make sure we are providing training for the vulnerable," Wall said.
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil, who appeared to be
offside with his provincial counterparts at the time of Kenney's announcement,
said he secured an agreement with Ottawa after speaking directly with Kenney
today.
"The province has secured an agreement with the federal
government to ensure that Nova Scotia's concerns with the Canada Job Grant are
addressed," said a statement issued by McNeil's office.
"I communicated to Mr. Kenney that the Canada Job Grant
must work better for Nova Scotians," McNeil said in the written
statement. "The program must be affordable for our small businesses
and must protect employment support for our most vulnerable citizens."
Kenney said he would "continue working with provinces
and territories on the details in the days to come."
In their joint news
release Friday, the premiers said now that
the provinces will move to iron out whatever concerns remain on a bilateral
basis with Kenney, they expect those individual agreements to include
"a betterment clause."
If a province succeeds in negotiating a better deal with
Kenney, such a clause would ensure that the same agreement is made available to
other provinces too.
While Quebec is still very much interested
in negotiating the renewal of its LMA, it continues to seek an
option to opt out with full compensation from the Canada Job Grant.
Quebec Labour Minister Agnès Maltais indicated on
Friday that the two sides are in "intense negotiations" and that a
deal could come as early as Saturday.
Maltais said Kenney hoped to reach an agreement with Quebec
"in the coming days," but that she was prepared to sign on the dotted
line "tomorrow."
"Quebec is ready to ready to settle tomorrow morning.
If Mr. Kenney wants us to sign a deal tomorrow morning, I'm ready to sign
tomorrow morning — because I think we are close enough to a settlement to do
so," Maltais told reporters on Friday
Kenney will travel to Germany next week to study the
country’s dual education system which he has touted as a model Canada could
learn lessons from.
Source:http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/canada-job-grant-notably-different-leave-offer-021755754.html
#2
Conservatives
losing ground, grim polling numbers suggest
Fewer people in Ontario, B.C. identify as Conservatives, Manning
Networking Conference poll finds
By Laura
Payton, CBC News Posted:
Mar 01, 2014 11:27 AM ET Last
Updated: Mar 01, 2014 1:48 PM ET
Conservative support is down
across much of Canada and the party ranks behind the Liberals and NDP on their
perceived ability to handle many issues, a new poll unveiled Friday suggests.
(Chris Young/Canadian Press)
Conservative support is down across much of
Canada and the party ranks behind the Liberals and NDP on their
perceived ability to handle many issues, a poll unveiled Friday suggests.
The poll, conducted
by Carleton University's André Turcotte, was
presented at an annual conference put on by the Manning Centre in
Ottawa. Turcotte does a poll every year on the state of conservatism
in Canada.
The numbers are better
elsewhere, rising to 48 from 40 per cent in the prairies and to 16 up from 12
per cent in Quebec.
Turcotte surveyed 1,000 adult
Canadians online Dec. 16 to 18, 2013, including "an
over-sample" of 500 self-defined Conservatives.
'It gets worse'
There was more bad news for the
party, Turcotte told the conference delegates and reporters gathered to hear
his presentation.
And here's where it gets worse," he
said to introduce a series of slides that showed the Conservatives tied with
the Liberals or ranking below them on several issues among those polled.
Turcotte took the poll
results to rank the parties on a scale of one to 10 on their perceived ability
to deal with issues that respondents said were most important to them.
On the question of ability to
deal with the economy, the Liberals and Conservatives are essentially tied,
Turcotte said.
Both the Liberals and NDP rate ahead
of the Conservatives on the separate questions of managing health care and
unemployment.
The worst result for the Conservatives comes on how
the parties are perceived for their abilities to manage poverty and the
environment: the Liberals, NDP and the Green Party all rank ahead of the
Conservatives.
Turcotte also found in the
survey that 93 per cent of those polled either somewhat support or strongly
support "enhancing the investigative powers of Elections Canada to
investigate electoral wrongdoings." The same number somewhat support or
strongly support "full disclosure" of how public funds are spent,
although what exactly that means isn't defined.
Nearly as many, 92 per cent,
somewhat support or strongly support making party leaders more accountable to
their caucuses.
Source:http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservatives-losing-ground-grim-polling-numbers-suggest-1.2555858
Comment:
"Well …. Jason Kenney
finally has his useless, politically generated Jobs Grant program.
And Stephen Harper
is paying the price.
Nobody is under any
illusion that the latest Kenney/Harper political toy will generate any skilled
Canadian tradespersons.
The plan is based on
the illusion that small and medium sized trades employers will actually spend
$5,000 in order to scam $10,000 out of government.
The realties are:
- Trades employers don’t need petty cash as an incentive to train
workers... they need committed young workers prepared to spend the years
required to learn a trade.
- The provinces know that Kenney’s plan is a joke. They went along
with the scam because they know that they can kill it in 2016... just
after Kenney’s October 2015 election
As Stephen Harper’s
electioneer in chief, Kenney needs justification for his destruction of
Ontario’s foreign worker programs. (Please note that Alberta employers continue
to thrive on foreign workers)
The problem is that
Kenney also knows that most Ontario trades employers can’t find qualified
Canadian workers.
Kenney’s amateurish two
track strategy in Ontario is to keep the political, “base” happy by killing LMO’s and foreign worker visa
programs and then hope that Ontario business can be kept quiet by his:
- Encouraging more illegal workers in Ontario
- Throwing some tax money at
employers to allegedly train Canadian workers
The problem with the
Kenney/Harper logic is that Ontario employers no longer believe that they are
dealing with a conservative government…Kenney, and Harper, are seen as “big
government” socialists.
The employers were Stephen
Harper’s base. They have deserted Harper.
The evidence is clear:
- Kenney has handed over control of employers’ job sites to the
unions. The unions have grabbed control of the illegal workers and are
forcing employers to drive up costs.
- Kenney’s brutal 2013 “compliance” enforcement against legitimate
Ontario employers of foreign workers has backfired. There is now a feeling
that Kenney will probably move against companies hiring both illegal and
legal workers.
- While the GTA’s booming trades sector is losing existing legal
workers, Alberta gets unlimited foreign workers.
- While Harper/Kenney pretend to be protecting jobs by denying
employers the right to select or keep their own workers , Harper /Kenney give away, annually , 25,000 work permits to government selected Irish , British and
Frenchmen. Few of these people have any skills. Meanwhile, Kenney has
pushed back on the ability of Ontario construction employers to retain
even 1,000 of their own legal workers.
- The killing of the LMO and foreign worker programs in Ontario is
concurrent with announcement of the January 2015 roll out of the
Expression of Interest “(EOI) immigration program. This program will further
deny Ontario employers the right to choose their own workers from Europe. Instead, bureaucrats will select workers
on a “sight unseen” basis.
- The new EOI program will put Ontario employers and unions at the
mercy of “recruiters” from
Bangladesh etc who will assure that Harper/Kenney get their wish for
English speaking workers
This past weekend, a
leading conservative group, produced polling confirming that the government is
up ten points in Alberta and down 10 points in Ontario.
Harper is in trouble
in Ontario.
It is doubtful that Harper /Kenney understand the relationship between
polling numbers and their mismanagement of Ontario’s trades sector. They just
do not seem to realize that the trades in the GTA are what gas/oil represent in
Alberta.
Harper and Kenney, as an article of faith, promote the line that their
political “base” hates foreign workers. In the face of this logic:
·
the
Western part of Canada ,which is overrun by foreign tradesmen, supports Harper
·
Ontario,
which is denied foreign tradesmen, has turned on Harper
This all means that
Stephen Harper:
- Will lose every one his seats in Toronto (the 416)
- Will lose every one of his seats in Mississauga and Brampton
- Will lose most of his seats in Niagara region , York Region and
Durham Region
Ontario’s trades businesses have to outlast Harper/Kenney.
But two years is a long time.
The GTA and its trades sectors will suffer severe losses. "
Richard Boraks, March 2, 2014
