Trudeau again caters to youth vote

Dear Editor:

The basic idea of the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG), which is at the heart of the Liberal’s WE scandal, was poorly thought out. There’s nothing wrong with encouraging students to do work in return for pay, but why was it necessary to pay them with taxpayers’ money?

It would have been better to use the existing apparatus of Employment Canada to match students with private sector employers instead of signing them up for volunteer work with non-profit charities. That way, private sector employers could get essential work done and students would be paid for performing work which is economically necessary.

The nature of non-profit work which CSSG recipients would perform is unspecified. That leads to the conclusion that a lot of it would be “play jobs” which would provide some justification to funnel government money to students. Justin Trudeau got a big slice of youth vote in 2015 by promising change, glitter, free stuff and legalized pot.

The Liberals want to hang on to the youth vote, so it’s hardly surprising that they would push a program like this to demonstrate their continued benevolence. I’d hate to be an auditor with the job of reconciling disbursements of public funds with actual work done.

We are constantly told about labour shortages in the agricultural sector which compel agricultural businesses to bring in foreign labour at additional expense to them and us, the consumer and taxpayer. We’re also paying a lot of public money for quarantine and other costs involved with foreign labourers. So what’s wrong with using existing Employment Canada mechanisms to match students with summer jobs in the ag industry?

We also have work needs in the private and government sectors like reforestation, land reclamation and forest cleanup to mitigate the risk of fire. This is useful and rewarding work with a measurable deliverable.

It’s deal short term work for students. It would be like some of the big public works projects which were undertaken to provide employment in the Great Depression.

It’s too bad that the Liberals didn’t have the vision to grasp this opportunity instead of looking for short term political rewards with a mushy program like the CSSG. It would do our youth a lot of good to turn in their smart phones at starting time and pick up a shovel or a hoe and break a sweat doing an honest day’s work.

John Thompson

Kaleden

Email: letters@pentictonherald.ca Write: 101-186 Nanaimo Ave. W., Penticton, B.C. V2A 1N4

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