The little guys will feel it the most.
That’s one of the chief concerns of Warren Singh, executive director of the Alberta Construction Association, as he works with members to cope with the cancellation of the Canada-Alberta Job Grant.
Alberta halted applications to the Canada-Alberta Job Grant Aug. 7, blaming the federal government for effectively reducing its Labour Market Transfer Agreement (LMTA) to the provinces and territories by $625 million. That translates to a $70 million hit to provincial coffers, according to Employment Minister Matt Jones, who called the reduction “unacceptable.
“As a result of this cut, Alberta’s employers will be short roughly $10 million in skills and training funding for 2024-25. This means approximately 1,000 businesses, and the training for up to 4,000 Albertan employees, will be impacted.”
The job grant provided nearly $27 million in 2023-24 to Alberta employers so new workers could be properly trained, and existing employees can pursue upgrading, according to the province.
The cut will affect all ACA members but will hit smaller companies with 20 or fewer employees disproportionately, Singh said Wednesday.
“Most of our members are in trades for sure, but we also have members that cut across a number of different areas,” he explained. “We do have trade contractors, we have general contractors. You know, we have teams that manage projects. We have folks who help with setting up and reviewing contracts, so there are a number of different elements to this.”
An existing employee working in a trade wants to upgrade their project management skills, for example, Singh said. The company is interested since they’ve already invested in this individual, so it seems like a good project for winter, the construction off-season. This is where the Canada-Alberta Job grant would come into play.
“I just mention one example, but there are multitudes of examples that come through that we’ve heard.”
Singh hopes the federal and provincial governments will be able to get back to the table and get that training funding back in the hands of the companies that need it. He’s less concerned with whether it’s called LMTA funding, or part of a new program.
“We don’t know if this is indefinite, so this is creating quite a bit of a concern from our members, for sure.”
Jones is hopeful the Canada-Alberta Job Grant will return in 2025. He pointed out that any applications received before Aug. 7 will be processed. He said Alberta will take this opportunity to explore how it could improve the program, a review that usually takes place every five years.
“My hope is to reopen the applications next year,” Jones said Friday. “We’re not slowing down (this year), but obviously, there’s less to work with.”
Jones and his provincial and territorial counterparts are legion on this file. They met with Randy Boissonnault, federal employment minister, in June to express their unanimous opposition to the reduction in the LMTA, which sees about $3 billion transferred from Ottawa to the territories and provinces each year. They added that contrary to what Boissonault claims, none of them were alerted to the cut prior to April of this year.
Jones said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wrote Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the subject, too.
Each jobs minister wants the funding restored. Jones said Alberta should receive a more equitable share of that money each year, arguing this province receives 35 per cent less than the national average, and that the base funding for the LMTA should be adjusted to account for the 13 per cent spike in Canada’s population has experienced since 2017.
He said the LMTA hasn’t been increased since that year, which effectively means it is already $1 billion shy of where it should be.
The reduction to the LMTA is affecting a top-up payment Jones said was created to give the provinces and territories time to create a new formula.
“It’s 25 years old,” Jones said of the math that sees Alberta receive 35 per cent less from the LMTA than the national average.
Don’t tread on us
Co-occurring with the LMTA cut is an expansion of the federal government’s own jobs training program. Jones called it less efficient and less effective than Alberta’s programming: 74 per cent of Albertans who received some form of LMTA-supported training were employed within 90 days, a rate he said leaves federal programs in the dust.
“Across Canada, we have declining productivity,” Jones said. He pointed out that in Alberta, health care and the skilled trades are in particular demand. “So to make people more productive, reducing the funding for the provinces and territories, which have a demonstrated track record of delivering in this space, seems counterproductive.”
Jones urged St. Albertans to reach out to their MP and federal government and “remind them” that the provinces and territories are in the best position to deliver programs aimed at supporting the labour force.
“Now’s not the time to pull back from training,” he said. “The federal government is reducing (the LMTA) allocation while standing up their own resource programs, so they can operate duplicative programming. The federal government should provide the funding they committed to.”
Minister Boissonnault’s office did not respond to a request for comment before press deadline.
