If you鈥檙e going to launch a co-operative program, you should first get the co-operation of all participants. On the surface, the Harper government鈥檚 sa国际传媒 Jobs Grant program sounds like a decent idea to solve the problem of jobs that go begging for lack of skilled workers. The program, the centrepiece of the March federal budget, would offer $15,000 per worker for job training, with the federal government, the provinces and the employers each kicking in $5,000.
Except the party of the first part didn鈥檛 get prior agreement from the party of the second part. The program was announced without input and co-operation of the provinces and territories. The plan has aroused opposition among provincial and territorial leaders, who say it diverts some of the money the federal government gives to provinces and territories and would require them to come up with more than $600 million in extra money.
They also think many small businesses couldn鈥檛 afford their share.
Premier Christy Clark says the plan will create more problems than it will solve. She and Premier Kathleen Wynne of Ontario are leading the battle against Ottawa over the program, and so they should. The federal plan seems much like a recent Dilbert comic strip, in which the corporate genius tells the engineers: 鈥淏uild a hyperloop to connect every major city in the world with super-fast transportation.鈥� In the second panel, he says: 鈥淭he vision was the hard part. You idiots can work on the details.鈥�
Employment and Social Development Minister Jason Kenney has said he will meet with provincial and territorial leaders this fall to discuss how to implement the program. He needs to go to that meeting prepared to be flexible, because the premiers will want substantial changes if they are to sign on to the program.
鈥淲e need to sit down with the federal government and better understand exactly what problems it is that they鈥檇 like to solve,鈥� Clark told reporters in Ontario this week. 鈥淚 can only speak for British Columbia, but we have a pretty good record of success. None of us want to create more problems, which is what the current model for the sa国际传媒 Job Grant would do.鈥�
The premiers are not alone in denouncing the plan. In July, the Caledon Institute for Social Policy issued a report in which it said the federal program calls on provinces to 鈥渃ancel their own ground-tested programs and then to expect them to find substantial new funding from their own budgets to pay for an untested new federal program in an area of provincial jurisdiction.鈥�
The report said the program is 鈥渄eeply flawed public policy that is likely to deliver inferior results.鈥�
It鈥檚 good that Kenney plans to meet with premiers, but his timing is off. The program is doomed to fail without the co-operation of premiers, and they won鈥檛 buy into it without substantial changes. That will necessitate effort that would have been constructively expended on formulating the plan, rather than trying to renovate it.
One federal document stresses that it should be made clear to provinces and territories that the federal government gets credit for the plan once it is in place. That and the unilateral announcement of the plan seem to indicate that the Harper government is more interested in polishing its image than in an effective program.
Yet more goodwill would be generated by a well-crafted plan put together by all involved than by a lofty but flawed vision imposed from above.
Perhaps something can be salvaged when the federal government and the premiers finally sit down to talk, but chances of success would have been vastly better had the Harper government consulted the provinces first.
