LAST YEARS FEDERAL BUDGET TOTALLY VACANT ON JOBS! The Harper Conservatives said job creation was their prime budget objective last year. So how did that turn out? With a paltry 100,000 net new jobs generated in the whole country for the whole year, 2013 turned out to be the worst year for Canadian jobs since the 2008 recession. The year ended with the jobless rate on the way up again (7.2%). Mr. Harper promised a new Jobs Grant program to create more employment, but he so blundered the roll-out that nearly a year later the program still does not exist and not a single new job has been produced. The key problem was funding. Mr. Harper wanted the appearance of taking action, but he didnt want to put up any new federal money to make it happen. So he proposed to force the provinces to cancel some provincial job creation programs (especially those serving vulnerable people with special needs) so the feds could claw-back $300-million in transfer payments and use it to pay the federal share of the Jobs Grant scheme. Then, the provinces would have to come up with another $300-million in new provincial resources to match the amount the feds clawed-back. And finally there would have to be private sector employers to cough up another $300-million. It was a hair-brained plan that was doomed to fail. The provinces unanimously turned thumbs down. There were desperate negotiations, even today, trying to salvage something before another budget comes down in less than a month. Adding insult to injury this past year, the one major federal initiative that had a positive impact on jobs -- infrastructure funding -- was dramatically reduced. The federal Build Canada Fund, which was supposed to be investing in public projects at the rate of $1.7-billion per year, was cut back this year to just $200-million for the whole country. Thats a reduction of $1.5-billion. That cut will stay in effect next year too, and for most of the year after that. So its no wonder the Harper record on jobs is pretty mediocre. No amount of fancy government advertising will make a silk purse out of this sows ear.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 02:09:27 +0000