Hon. Alice Wong, P.C.

The following is a letter sent to Service Canada in regards to the Member of Parliament’s input concerning validation of the 2018 Canada Summer Jobs Program.

If the Member of Parliament does not participate in the validation, the recommendations as provided by Service Canada will remain for the accepted applicants, as deemed by Service Canada.

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March 29, 2018

Elsa Chu del Aguila
Director, Citizen Services
Service Canada

Re: Canada Summer Jobs Grant 2018 – Validation

Dear Elsa,

Thank you for the work that you and your staff perform on behalf of Canadians in the Vancouver area. Both our office and myself have been highly appreciative of your efforts in past years, and we continue to be today.

I regret to inform you that I will not be signing the validation of the 2018 list of projects.

Due to directives from the Liberal government, the application process for the Canada Summer Jobs Grant in 2018 required all applicants to agree to an attestation stating (partially), “Both the job and my organization’s core mandate respect individual human rights in Canada, including the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as other rights. These include reproductive rights and the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, mental or physical disability or sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression”.

The Canada Summer Jobs attestation is little more than a politically motivated intervention. The functional effect is that an organization has to sign an attestation stating they share certain values with the Liberal Party of Canada in order to be eligible to receive funding. This is a slippery slope that I cannot and will not condone with my signature.

Indeed, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms permits the right to freedom of belief and opinion, even those that are contrary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Upon surveying successful applicants from the 2017 cycle of the Canada Summer Jobs Grant application, I have discovered that many of my constituent groups could not sign the attestation as presented in the 2018 Canada Summer Jobs cycle. They have been effectively denied the right to access the Canada Summer Jobs program this year due to having a different opinion than the Liberals. This is unacceptable.

Once again, I would like to emphasize this is not the fault of you or the front-line staff of Service Canada, who are tasked with faithfully executing the directives of the government. My concern is with the political interference over the administration of what was otherwise a well-designed program.

Sincerely,

Hon. Alice Wong, P.C.
M.P. for Richmond Centre

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