14 April 2010

Government-subsidised government jobs

There are two things to notice about a provincial government news release from the human resources and labour department announcing the awarding of $67,000 of job subsidies for seven jobs in the electoral district represented by the minister responsible for human resources and labour.

Well, there’s three if you include the fact that Susan Sullivan is announcing money for her own district and at no time makes reference to the fact it is her district.

But there are two other aspects of this release that scream out for attention:

Firstly, the news release gives absolutely no background whatsoever on what the seven people benefitting from the cash will be doing. In fact, aside from the first paragraph, the rest of the release pours out tons of boilerplate on the program used to pay for the jobs.

Secondly, one of the employers involved in the projects is the Nova Central School District. The money is for “the hiring of staff…” for the district.

In other words, the provincial government is using government money from one department to subsidize jobs in another line department.  Nova Central gets its funding from Darrin King, the education minister.

Talk about jobs that depend on taxes.

Talk about make-work schemes.

-srbp-