NDP Must Reverse Cuts to Youth Jobs, Community Programs as Unemployment Rises
WINNIPEG — Manitoba Progressive Conservatives are calling on Wab Kinew’s NDP to restore their $4 million in funding cuts to community Green Team grants and put young Manitobans to work amid an alarming rise in unemployment this summer.
Youth unemployment was posted at 11.2% in July, up 2.3 percentage points from May and double the provincial unemployment rate of 5.7%, according to provincial labour statistics.
“It’s clear that the NDP’s cuts have pushed young Manitobans out of the job market at a time when our communities need more investment, not less,” said Wayne Ewasko, Leader of the Official Opposition. “It’s not too late for the NDP to apologize for lying about Green Team funding in Budget 2024 and restore the cuts so we can get youth employment back on track through fall and winter.”
For decades, the popular Green Team program has been helping non-profit organizations and municipalities hire summer students to clean up their neighbourhoods and deliver community programs, Ewasko noted.
At the same time Wab Kinew was sending out rejection letters to youth camps, sports teams, museums, and libraries, he was hiding legislation to double election subsidies in his $24-billion omnibus budget bill, Ewasko added. This is something the NDP did not campaign on, and the legislation will not go before Manitobans for consultation when the Legislature resumes in the fall.
“Manitobans are still having a difficult time trying to understand how the NDP decided to prioritize using tax dollars to support their political party over supporting community programs,” Ewasko said. “Manitobans would prefer to see their taxes supporting our youth instead of funding the NDP’s re-election war chest. The NDP can’t be trusted to put the needs of our economy and Manitoba families first.”
Community funding has taken several casualties in the past year under the NDP, including Kinew’s discontinuation of Art, Culture and Sport in Community grants, and cutting the Building Sustainable Communities fund by more than half.
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