By Jamie Irving
Forget the Y2K bug.
These days, the federal government is more concerned with Youth 2000. It is a $280,000 Human Resource and Development initiative to create 2,000 jobs for youth in the capital region by the end of the year 2000.
It’s a program that has been misinterpreted, says Ottawa Centre MP Mac Harb.
“People have misunderstood totally what we are trying to do here,” says Harb.
Harb, who is a key supporter of the new initiative, recently came under media fire for supporting the expensive millennium project.
A July 1 editorial in the Ottawa Citizen claimed the government is not really creating anything new — only wasting taxpayer money.
“Mr. Harb’s millennium baby has its own home on Nicholas Street now and is a ravenous child. This year it will get $280,000 in federal money and presumably the same next. Yet all the program does is petition local businesses asking them to hire youth,” said the Citizen editorial.
“The program’s goal is to ‘create’ 2,000 jobs by the end of next year. In more than two months of operation, however, the program has only created 40 jobs, which means at this rate the program will only hit 25 per cent of its target and cost $1,166 per job.”
Harb says the Youth 2000 agency, itself, was only supposed to create 300 jobs per year. That means, the agency is only supposed to create a total of 600 jobs over a two-year period.
The balance of the 1,400 jobs is to come from local businesses who have pledged to hire young people, but don’t necessarily go through Youth 2000 agency to place these jobs.
“Human resources did not give $280,000 to create 2000 jobs — let me be clear on that — it is imperative that we make the distinction,” said Harb.
Harb maintains the coalition is, in fact, a broader initiative by the Ottawa business and political community.
“There are two components here, we the community itself has to create 2000 jobs. The youth 2000 agency is only a part of the 2000 jobs. It’s important not to mix those two together, and I know the Ottawa Citizen has misunderstood totally what we are trying to do,” said Harb.
So far this year the agency alone has placed around 100 new jobs.
When you combine both the agency work and the coalition work, Harb claims the initiative has found postions for more than 400 young people.
Though he admits it is difficult to calculate precisely the number of jobs created because they were not all placed through the agency.
What exactly does the Youth 2000 agency do?
Since opening in April, the four-person office, located on Nicholas St., has served a number of different roles for youth in the community.
“We do a lot of counseling for resume writing, interview skills, networking and that sort of thing . . . So we can empower our youth and set them on the right path to finding a job,” says Allison Russell, The Youth 2000 office manager.
“We also have the employer portion as well — we do job matching.”
So far, most employers seem to be very happy with the services Youth 2000 supply.
“I’d say I support it 100 per cent,” says Sheila Whyte, of Thyme and Again Catering.
“It’s a great service, they are very friendly, they are very efficient and they have sent us some wonderful staff over the summer.”