Kenney holds his ground in liberal territory
Minister tells business to lead on job training
OTTAWA • Jason Kenney — one of the Harper cabinet’s truest true believers — went deep into enemy territory on Thursday, speaking to a hundred-odd ‘‘progressives’’ at the Canada 2020 conference.
The conference bills itself as “Canada’s leading, independent, progressive think-tank working to redefine the role of the federal government for a modern Canada.” The conference’s speakers list includes big liberal names like Justin Trudeau and Hillary Clinton.
When Mr. Kenney took the stage and cracked “hello, fellow Conservatives,” there was a knowing round of laugh- ter. The employment minister’s recitation of the Harper government’s job-creation game plan hit the right notes for the assortment of academics, bankers, executives and party loyalists in the room. But the gaggle of Liberal Party advisors huddled in the back of the room must have picked up the undercurrent in the minister’s remarks.
Mr. Kenney was promising to handcuff his government — and, more precisely, any future governments — to a jobcreation program led by the private sector, not the federal government. It was as direct a challenge to the big-government think-tank as you could imagine.
The minister plowed through a laundry list of initiatives taken by his government to close the gap on Canada’s mediocre 7% unemployment rate, noting that it tends to be youth, First Nations and immigrants that fall behind when job creation is sluggish.
“Too many Canadians without jobs, and too many jobs without people,” Mr. Kenney quipped.
That adage is at the very core of Mr. Kenney’s messianic plan for rebuilding Canada’s job market. Skills training and targeted immigration programs, so oft derided by the very people sitting in front of him, have been his obsessions since taking over the role last year. Much of his work came to fruition in the recently finalized Canada Job Grant, a German-style investment in workplace training programs, as opposed to state-based education.
The previous Ottawa-run programs, he said, were the culprits in hobbling Canada’s private skills training. Thanks to a 40% drop in private-sector training, he said, Canada now sits in last place for employer-skills development.
“It doesn’t make any sense!” Mr. Kenney exclaimed to the room. “It’s going in the wrong direction.”
When all is said and done, though, Mr. Kenney’s reforms will leave very little oxygen for future governments — of whatever stripe — to return to the practice of Ottawa-run training programs.
And it will mean that businesses won’t be enjoying the sweet benefit of flashy Ottawa job-creation plans.
“I stand up in front of business audiences and say: you guys have been, to some ex- tent, freeloading on the public training system,” Mr. Kenney told reporters after his talk.
But given that the crowd actually appeared to join in Mr. Kenney’s enthusiasm, it’s not clear that they’ve come to that realization yet.
It’s all part of the broader Conservative plan to downsize the federal government by eliminating its ability to run a surplus, and thus start up big flashy new programs, and to outsource its programs at every possible turn.
In that vein, Mr. Kenney once again reiterated that his government would be sticking to the low-tax commitments made in its platform. Chiefly, the commitment, when the budget is balanced — as it very nearly is — to implement income splitting for families.
Asked whether these types of commitments — between lessening government revenue and devolving job training authority away from the federal government — would hobble a future government’s ability to launch its own initiatives, the minister laughed, then coyly agreed.
“I would ask the question a different way, which is: If you massively increase spending, how can you give Canadians a tax break?” Mr. Kenney said.
“The answer is, you can’t. That’s going to be the choice in the next election.”