For Immediate Release
January 21, 2010
McGuinty Government Slams Door on the Province's Unemployed: Bailey
Sarnia, ON-Bob Bailey, MPP for Sarnia-Lambton and opposition critic for Training and Apprenticeships, was disappointed today following the McGuinty government's decision to close down Employment Services offices and side-step repairing its failed Second Careers program, in its newly announced Employment Ontario restructuring plans.
Bailey reacted to the government's plan to again close doors to many of the province's jobless Ontarians in their search for work in a claimed ‘restructuring' process which will last for at least seven months and notably neglects to promise new funding.
"Following a year of record unemployment in our Province, the McGuinty Government has decided to cut funding to many offices which provide job finding, career planning and job training services in the name of ‘restructuring'" said Bailey. "While the province should be orientating itself towards putting thousands of Ontarians back to work, McGuinty has decided to force some employment agencies to close-up shop, many others will receive a funding-cut and a further few will be required to change their focus."
The government's announcement also failed to address the elephant in the room, the failure of the Second Career program. "The McGuinty government's promise to reeducate and train jobless Ontarians through its Second Career program can be described as nothing else than a miserable failure," said Bailey. "Instead of assisting those looking for work, the program is so wrapped up in red-tape that it is near impossible for many applicants to ever receive funding and at times it seems that more money is being spent on advertising the program's success than actually used to retrain anyone."
Bob Bailey, MPP for Sarnia-Lambton vowed to continue to press the McGuinty Government to do more to help the province's unemployed to retrain and find jobs following one of the greatest recessions Ontario has ever faced.
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For more information contact:
Bob Bailey, MPP
(416) 325-1715
