Clients and laid-off workers deserve explanation: Kirby

NDP Advanced Education and Skills Critic Dale Kirby (MHA, St. John’s North) says the abrupt closure of dozens of employment assistance centres in the province should come with a clear explanation, particularly in view of reports that the federal government plans to take back the funding it has been providing provinces for job training and retraining since 2009.

“These Employment Assistance Service providers provide vital help for job-seekers,” said Kirby. “This is help that many will simply not get elsewhere.”

The NDP MHA wants to know whether these cuts are recommendations in the as-yet-unreleased report reviewing AES operations prepared by former auditor general John Noseworthy at a cost of about $150,000.

“I would like to know what else Noseworthy recommended,” said Kirby. “And if there is any truth to today’s National Post story that Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plans to take back the $2 Billion the federal government has been giving to the provinces to administer job training programs.

“I would mainly like to know why the provincial government cannot give the hundreds of people adversely affected by this decision a better explanation than ‘streamlining’ when their lives are being put into disarray.”