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Results: 1 - 15 of 46
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Shugart. Thanks for being here today. Thank you so much for your leadership and service to our nation, especially during this unprecedented time.
I want to start off by going back to March and April, when the severity of the pandemic became obvious and the Government of Canada was very focused on providing Canadians with as much help as possible. I just went through everything that was announced before April 22, and I literally have four pages of announcements. There was an unprecedented amount of work done by our civil servants to provide supports to the homeless, to the arts sector, to the business sector, to individuals—you name it. We introduced a whole number of programs.
In terms of students, as you just mentioned, there was a huge concern about the unevenness of what was available in terms of jobs and opportunities and the ability for students to be able to continue to have financial means to be able to support their ongoing education. On April 22, $9 billion was announced to support post-secondary students. There were four key programs. There was the Canada emergency student benefit, expanding more jobs, in addition to CSJ, with adjustments to Canada student loans and grants to make them far more generous. This last segment was the Canada student service grant, which was up to $912 million. It was meant as a way to provide an opportunity for students to not only volunteer, serve in their community and help non-profits, but also to earn a little bit of extra money.
Again, my understanding is there was a stacking element. You could actually have up to three of these components. We could give many opportunities to students across this country and give them the best ability to be able to continue to work or continue to support their community while also trying to raise some funds for their ongoing education.
There's this false narrative around the federal government setting up the Canada student service grant to provide an hourly wage for students. Can you please relate to the committee whether there was the intention to provide an hourly wage or whether it was meant as part of an overall package, some additional support, in a grant format?
Ian Shugart
View Ian Shugart Profile
Ian Shugart
2020-07-21 11:43
My understanding...and I want to underline to the committee, Chair, that I am not the file expert, and one of my many flaws is a non-encyclopedic memory. But my understanding is that this was intended to help provide for the needs of students who, because of the inability to have part-time work or perhaps the support from families that have been affected by job loss, etc., were not able to access the CERB and they could very well be in hard times in terms of their own income.
So in the form of a grant, as you say, this was intended to meet that financial need, but as part of an engagement putting students who would otherwise have been studying to work in ways so that they could make a contribution through non-profits and support to the community and so on during the pandemic.
I might point out that one of the criteria, one of the requirements, of the WE Charity was to be able to support this kind of thing in a safe way, so that the public health goals of limiting the spread of the pandemic would be supported and attended to through this vehicle.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
So it was never meant to be an hourly wage, just an additional support, and one of many numbers of different things that the government was introducing to try to support the students.
Ian Shugart
View Ian Shugart Profile
Ian Shugart
2020-07-21 11:45
Well, I stand to be corrected by officials in the relevant departments, but that is my understanding. You're correct.
Chris Aylward
View Chris Aylward Profile
Chris Aylward
2020-07-21 12:24
Thank you. No problem.
My apologies, especially to the interpreters in the booth.
Students may actually end up making even less than $10 an hour. The grant will be calculated using 100-hour thresholds and will be rounded down. Students need to work a full 100 hours to get any money at all. If they work more than 100 hours, but less than 200, they are providing free labour for the additional hours. It is also ironic that the federal government has brought in regulations under the Canada Labour Code to restrict the use of unpaid internships, yet it is expecting students to work unpaid hours under the student service grant program.
Paying students to carry out volunteer work means that they are no longer volunteers. Simply calling them volunteers will not protect the government or the organizations employing them from violating provincial labour standards. PSAC agrees that students need support during this very difficult time. What they don’t need is a program that shortchanges them for their labour.
The government could have organized the program to pay students to work for non-profit agencies and charities, carrying out duties that volunteers could not do, or to perform work that would not be done due to a shortage of volunteers. They could have been paid at least minimum wage for their work, but ideally a wage more closely aligned to the type of work they would be performing, and they could be paid for all their work. For that matter, why introduce a grant program that emphasizes volunteer experience as opposed to job experience? The government could have taken immediate action to bolster existing summer student employment programs, including the federal student work experience program.
Finally—and let me conclude—if the government had either used existing programs or asked the public service to set up a new student work and payment plan, it would have avoided the conflict of interest issues that have come to light since the WE Charity announcement, and it would have been able to deliver both pay and work experience to students.
Thank you.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
Thank you.
My question is for Mr. Aylward.
First of all, Mr. Aylward, thank you to you and your members for the extraordinary work the public service has done during this pandemic. It is a real testament to their commitment and professionalism. Though we don't always agree with the government's policies, we do commend those who have taken an oath to loyally deliver the programs, and your members have done that, so please give them our thanks.
Are you aware of any federal program that provides students with some compensation for working at non-profits and/or charities?
Chris Aylward
View Chris Aylward Profile
Chris Aylward
2020-07-21 13:09
There are a number of programs for students that are currently being administered by the federal public service that do that type of work. I would defer to my technical expert who is with me, my technical resource, Mr. West. If he is on the line, he could provide a better answer to that.
Howie.
Chris Aylward
View Chris Aylward Profile
Chris Aylward
2020-07-21 13:09
Okay, maybe Mr. West is not with us. That's okay.
Mr. Poilievre, I can't give you specific programs that would do that, but as I said, I do know there are several programs administered within the federal public service that address student issues.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
Are there there any programs that basically provide some federally backed compensation or wage subsidy for students to help not-for-profits or charities?
Joshua Mandryk
View Joshua Mandryk Profile
Joshua Mandryk
2020-07-21 13:10
Yes, some of the existing programs do that. They'll provide subsidies to the not-for-profits and charities for the full value of those young workers' wages in order to hire them as employees.
View Ryan Turnbull Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Ryan Turnbull Profile
2020-06-12 14:39
I'd like to ask you a follow-up question about that.
We also announced new eligibility criteria for the Canada student loans program and a doubling of the Canada student grant. Do you think that's going to have an impact on helping students go back, re-enrol and pay for that tuition in the fall?
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