Federal budget sparks new round of provincial bickering,

Job grant program sets off complaints, concern coast to coast

OTTAWA— Ontario is not getting a better deal from Ottawa’s new budget than Quebec, federal officials informed the Quebec government after the budget set off a round of bickering and provincial jealousy.

Quebec “should put old quarrels aside” and “stick to the facts,” Transport Minister Denis Lebel said.

Lebel stepped in after Quebec Premier Pauline Marois’s government reacted furiously to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget. Quebec Finance Minister Nicolas Marceau called it “economic sabotage” and Federal-Provincial Minister Alexandre Cloutier suggested Ottawa had eliminated a tax credit much used in Quebec and instead shifted money to Ontario’s manufacturers.

“While Ontario is getting $900 million for its manufacturing industry,” Cloutier said, “Quebec is getting peanuts from Ottawa.”

Lebel said Quebec is overestimating Ottawa’s help for Ontario manufacturers. Not all of the $920 million earmarked Thursday for economic development in southern Ontario over five years will go to the goods-producing industry, Lebel pointed out in a statement. And he noted Quebec gets similar help.

Quebec also led the chorus of objections and skepticism that emerged over a key element of the budget package: the $300-million Canada Job Grant plan. The proposal would give Ottawa more control over how provinces use $500 million a year in federal training funds. On Friday, Quebec Labour Minister Agnes Maltais formally requested that Quebec be excluded from the new skills-training program. “We refuse to go 15 years backward,” she said. Ontario’s Brad Duguid — the minister for training, colleges and universities — said the way the job grant plan is set up will take away the province’s ability to direct funds to the most needy job seekers. British Columbia says it’s concerned and Nova Scotia and Newfoundland want more information. Flaherty, who was in Vancouver to sell the budget in a speech, said he didn’t get advance buy-in from the provinces on the job skills plan because it uses federal tax money. But he said it’s not a take-it-or-leave-it situation for the provinces. “I think there’s an opportunity to negotiate and work it out.” The budget’s aboriginal measures also prompted objections. The only major new spending for First Nations is $241 million over five years for skills training of young natives on reserves who are receiving welfare-type payments. But the new training money will only go to reserves that make it mandatory for those receiving income assistance payments to be retrained, the government said. “Announcements on reallocated funding for skills and trade development tied to compulsory program changes are nothing short of coercion and racialized policy implementation,” Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said. NDP MP Nathan Cullen accused the Tories of imposing “Mike Harris-style mandatory workfare,” referring to the controversial program introduced by Ontario Tories to reduce welfare rolls by forcing able-bodied recipients into training programs or jobs.

But Greg Rickford, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of aboriginal affairs, said the Conservatives were taking steps to tackle high jobless rates on reserves.