Last Friday, I met with my fellow board members of the Canadian Coalition of Community-Based Employability Training (CCCBET) and Miles Wu, Senior Policy Analyst to the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion. As you can imagine, the public service in Ottawa is exceptionally busy preparing for the federal budget release on November 4, and many of the pre-announcements suggest that employment funding is once again at the forefront.
 
While this focus is encouraging, many initiatives appear to be top-down solutions. That’s great, but we know they would be even more effective if they were complemented by bottom-up approaches that leverage the expertise of community-based service providers. We were delighted to share with Mr. Wu how our members are already connected to job seekers, employers, and community economic development groups, identifying and addressing local labour-market challenges long before the data reaches government.
 
CCCBET has a proposal before the federal government to strengthen this connection by establishing a national network of sector councils, which would link community-based service providers across Canada. From what we are hearing in Ottawa, we might be in the right place at the right time. For BC’s community-based employment service providers, this could mean long-awaited federal investment in our existing network, recognizing that allowing it to weaken in today’s dynamic labour market would be a disservice to both Canada’s economic resilience and its communities.
 
I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

Janet Morris-Reade, CEO
ASPECT BC