Opposition demand answers and action for students following liberal WE apologies

OTTAWA -- Federal opposition parties are continuing to demand answers from the federal government, and are calling for a quick solution to revive or rework the nowhalted $900 million student summer grant program.

The program was initially awarded to WE Charity, prompting a series of headlines calling into question Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ethics and the potential conflict of interest he and his finance minister may have put themselves in by not recusing themselves from the decision making table on the deal, given their close family connections to the organization.

On Monday both Trudeau and minister Bill Morneau apologized for their part in the controversy and vowed to recuse themselves from any WE Charity discussions in the future, though the federal ethics commissioner is still looking into the matter, and various House of Commons committees plan to continue to hear testimony and seek evidence that could further shed light on how this sole-sourced contract came about. The government insists it was the public service that suggested WE Charity was the best, and only organization to administer the program, though now government departments and agencies are being looked at as alternatives to execute the program that was created to offer students grants for summer volunteer work related to COVID-19. While the government has vowed to rework the program as quickly as possible, after WE Charity handed back over the program to the government along with the funding, thousands of students are left in limbo without summer jobs and, for now, no chance for volunteer grants to help cover costs like fall tuition.

This has prompted the Green Party to suggest shifting the funds to the Canada Summer Jobs program instead, a pre-existing program that connects young people to temporary job opportunities in their communities. That program was deemed oversubscribed this summer and the government has already put additional funding into it. “There are thousands of Canadian students who need jobs and thousands of Canadian charities and nonprofits which are dealing with a decline in revenue and an increase in demand in services that could benefit from students working with them. Organizations that applied through WE should be allowed to move their application to Canada Summer Jobs,” Green Party parliamentary leader Elizabeth May said in a statement.

The grant to post-secondary students and recent graduates was designed to provide one-time payments of up to $5,000 for volunteering in pandemic-related programs, depending on the number of hours worked. For every 100 hours spent, a student would receive $1,000.

“The whole premise of the Canada Student Service Grant was problematic,” said Green Party MP and employment critic Paul Manly in the same statement, noting that the amount being offered for the volunteer work was less than the minimum wage in any province.

“Students would not gain any EI eligible hours or have this de facto employment recognized next spring if there is another wave of the pandemic and a need for further financial relief programs,” he said.