Kenney prepares to meet with provinces hostile to his jobs grant program

OTTAWA – The federal government’s Canada Job Grant proposals are in trouble, officials and opposition critics say on the eve of Jason Kenney’s meeting with his provincial and territorial counterparts.

Seven months after Ottawa first proposed the program in its March 2013 budget, the minister of employment and social development can expect a litany of complaints when he sits down with his colleagues on Friday in Toronto.

Quebec has even demanded to opt out of the program.

Brad Duguid, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, says the government is out on a “fragile branch” with the job grant program.

Provinces and territories are particularly opposed to Kenney’s plan to slice $300 million — about 60 per cent — from the so-called labour market agreements implemented by the Conservatives in 2007.

Those initiatives, popular with the provinces and territories, provide funds to train unemployed workers not eligible for employment insurance and are aimed at aboriginals, immigrants, women, youth, older workers, and people with disabilities or low literacy levels.