The Canada Job Grant is a skill and trade training program established by the Government of Canada subsequent to the passage of the 2013 federal budget. It will be funded by the Canada Job Fund, a fund transfer from the federal government to provincial and territorial governments, which will be responsible for implementing the program. It will enable individuals to receive up to in training services, funded by the federal government and the individual's employer.
Establishment
Passage of the 2013 federal budget resulted in the establishment of the Canada Job Grant in 2014, a training fund stipulating that the federal government would provide for an individual's training in trades and skills, but requiring matching funds from provincial governments and the individual's employer. The program is part of the federal government's strategy to develop skills for jobs that were not being filled, or were being filled by temporary foreign workers.
The federal government expected to fund the annual million program by renegotiating the Labour Market Agreement it had with the provinces, which expired in 2014. The Labour Market Agreements were federal transfers of $500 million to the provinces used to assist vulnerable workers.
Objections
The fund's announcement during the 2013 federal budget speech was criticized by provincial representatives. Brad Duguid, Ontario's Minister of Training, Colleges, and Universities, stated that the program would shift million from programs "that target our most vulnerable and have the greatest barriers to entering the workforce".
Quebec's Minister of Finance, Nicolas Marceau, stated that the federal government was "undoing and sabotaging what Quebec has long been doing". On 22 March 2013, Labour Minister Agnes Maltais of the Government of Quebec formally requested exclusion from the program. It prefers to operate its own program, instead of participating in a joint federal-provincial program.
Objections were also raised by First Nations about a five-year million skills training program available only to reserves that make it "mandatory for those receiving income assistance payments to be retrained".
Provincial government officials also stated that it removed full control of spending of the funds by the provinces. Marceau described it as "economic sabotage". At the July 2013 Council of the Federation at Niagara-on-the-Lake, premiers unanimously opposed the Canada Job Grant. Kathleen Wynne, the Premier of Ontario, stated that the proposed fund was "not going to work the way it is".
Brad Wall, the Premier of Saskatchewan, stated that businesses in Saskatchewan may not benefit from the program because the province was at full employment and that the province needed basic skills training programs for vulnerable individuals.
Provincial governments did not want federal funding for the program to be taken from the labour market agreements it had with each province since 2007. The million program, representing a reallocation of 60% of federal labour market agreement contributions to the provinces, would necessitate the provinces funding programs operated via the labour market agreement by other means. These programs, which are considered successful, ensured continued employment for 86% of participants two years after training.
The 2014 federal budget specified that Service Canada would operate the Canada Job Grant in jurisdictions with which the federal government failed to secure agreements. Wes Sheridan, the Minister of Finance, Energy and Municipal Affairs for Prince Edward Island, described it as a "take it or leave it Canada Job Grant program". Marceau stated that this was a "thinly veiled threat to Quebec and the other provinces".
Negotiations
Jason Kenney, the Minister of Employment and Social Development, negotiated terms of the funding program with provincial and territorial ministers in February 2014. The deal required provinces to allocate 10% of the Labour Market Agreement to the training fund, and required an additional 10% of funding each subsequent year from any source of federal government transfers to the provinces (for example, the Labour Market Agreement or Labour Market Development Agreement).
