Prime minister Justin Trudeau announced a boost to the Canada Summer Jobs Program (CSJP) on Wednesday, April 8. The wage subsidy for CSJP employers will be raised from up to 50 percent of minimum wage to 100 percent, and the program—which helps students find work in the summer—will now include part-time jobs as well as full-time, with the qualification period extended to cover positions that continue into February 2021.
The application period for the CSJP closed at the end of February. The federal government has said it will work with organizations that provide essential services but didn’t apply to see if they can still be in the program. The government estimates the program will cost $263 million, with the goal being to create 70,000 jobs for young people.
Trudeau said the government is also asking employers to consider changing the way they do business to better fit with the times; if you serve a food bank, he said, consider hiring students to do delivery, for example.
More than 1 million jobs were lost across Canada as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The announcement comes days after the BC provincial government announced additional emergency funding for Indigenous students in the province through the Indigenous Emergency Assistance Fund, which was launched in 2012. The government has announced $305 million in funding that will address immediate needs such as rent payments, groceries, cell phone bills, and medical costs for those living in First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.
Minister of advanced education, skills and training Melanie Mark— who is the first First Nations woman to serve in the cabinet of British Columbia—says that in these hard times, the money wasn’t easy to procure. The students have already shown resilience, and the last thing Mark wants is for students to give up after already overcoming so much. That’s why the fund is there, she says.
“In the event that times are tough, we don’t want them to quit,” she says. “We don’t want them to give up; we don’t want them to feel that they can’t get through the next hurdle.”
Mark, pointing to article 21.1 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, says that it’s time for all students to be able to complete their studies.
“For many, many years in my career I’ve been fighting for that social, economic, and environmental justice… We’re committed to making sure that Indigenous students cross the finish line,” says Mark. “We know that 80 percent of jobs in the future are going to require some level of post-secondary education, and if we don’t close the gap we are going to leave people behind.”
Many of the communities in the province that are of higher risk in the pandemic are Indigenous communities, and Mark says that being deliberate, disciplined, and purposeful is key.
“This investment took some advocacy; it’s not easy to get money during these trying times,” she says. “We advocated for this money because we see the value of supporting Indigenous students. We need those people to build up the province.”