NDP jobs grant program: benefit or boondoggle?

Nothing the NDP is doing provokes more panic among opposition conservatives than the new $ 5,000 Job Creation Incentive Program. While a new poll from Mainstreet Research shows 71 per cent of Albertans actually support this program, chances are the uproar will continue.

Nothing the NDP is doing provokes more panicked wallet- slapping among opposition conservatives than the new $ 5,000 Job Creation Incentive Program.

This bitterly divisive issue blew up in the legislature Monday — again — with Wildrose Leader Brian Jean calling the program “a boondoggle in the making.”

He demanded answers to many questions about potential problems like corporate doubledipping. Outside the legislature, Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark also asked sharp questions about it.

Premier Rachel Notley instantly pointed out that a new poll from Mainstreet Research shows 71 per cent of Albertans support this program.

The New Democrats were ecstatic when they saw that number. You get the feeling even they had trouble believing it. There isn’t 70 per cent agreement on much in Alberta these days, except the glory of hockey and the Rockies.

The poll shows the New Democrats were on the right track when they promised direct action to create jobs. They were the only party to attack a problem of deep concern to youth during the spring election campaign, and by now a gnawing worry for nearly everyone else.

This promise — costing $ 178 million over two years — helped Notley win.

But the opposition is right to say too many details are still missing, despite the premier’s claim in the legislature that all was revealed in an announcement Monday.

The accompanying news release said: “The program will launch in spring 2016. Further details on the program, application requirement and procedures will be made available at a later date.”

So, there’s much to come. The uproar will continue because this plan — a direct hiring grant not just to corporations, but to charities, non- profits and nongovernment organizations — is unusual in Alberta.

Notley vowed that there will be checks and balances to make sure workers aren’t hired and let go after the money arrives, and that companies won’t fire people and then create a subsidiary to re- hire them.

She rejects all the Wildrose scenarios of how corporate crooks could milk this system. Jean isn’t convinced; he wants to know how much it will cost to police the program.

( It’s fascinating to hear businessfriendly Wildrose voicing dread of business scamming the grants, while the alleged businesshaters of the NDP are more trusting.)

Jobs Minister Lori Sigurdson said organizations won’t be able to collect from more than one government program.

“There won’t be double dipping,” she said. “If you’re getting an infrastructure grant, then that’s where you’ll be getting the support, and if you’re doing the jobs incentive grant, that’s where you will ( get the support). It’s pretty distinct.”

The grant for each employee hired will be capped at $ 5,000. A company or other eligible organization can claim for up to 100 employees.

The total benefit to a company, therefore, is capped at $ 500,000 a year, enough to interest many businesses in times like these.

The program is supposed to create up to 27,000 jobs. The first qualifying applications in the door get the grants, which could create quite the gold rush when the rules and deadlines are revealed.

Notley says this is only one of many incentives for job creation. Others include direct orders to Alberta Treasury Branches on lending, and AIMCo on investment to target growth- oriented companies in the province.

The only measure provoking much suspicion is the job grant, partly because this isn’t quite what the NDP promised during the election campaign.

It began with a campaign pledge on April 9 in Lethbridge. The NDP called it the Job Creation Tax Credit. There was no mention of grants.

This didn’t raise a huge fuss, partly because tax credits are more palatable to conservatives than a major program of government-administered grants.

But by the time the budget arrived last week, the promise had become the Job Creation Incentive Program. The NDP says there was no subterfuge. The plan changed once it hit the bureaucracy, cabinet and caucus.

Notley’s office says a tax incentive couldn’t have been offered to non- profits and charities, and the MLAs wanted to do that.

An aide to Sigurdson adds that using the tax system would have made it difficult to cap the benefit at $ 5,000 per new employee.

However this plan came to be, there’s no question the New Democrats risk an embarrassing administrative tangle after it gets rolling.

But they won’t back away. The promise is more popular than they are.