Billions in job skills training in the new federal budget will be good for Calgary, according to our Mayor.
It’s been a rough couple of years in the job market, especially in Alberta, with a sagging energy sector creating thousands of unemployed people.
But the new federal budget takes square aim at that problem with a cash injection of $3.5 billion between now and 2022, much of it for innovative technology.
Its good news for students in Calgary who are nervous about what the job market holds for them.
“Job security is number one, when you look for a job the first thing you think of is, how long is this going to be around, how long will I be able to do this job?” said Shawn Morrow, student.
The budget is expected to make 10,000 additional part-time students eligible for grants and loans every year, and will make it easier for students with dependents to go to school.
The budget is also putting billions toward transportation over the next 11 years across the country, leading our Mayor to call it a good news budget.
“The funding announced for transit for the next phase of the transit infrastructure program is $20.1 billion nationwide with an allocation formula. That formula means $1.15 billion to the City of Calgary for the Green Line,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
He also said that the Airport Trail project will be eligible for funding, though it will take a few weeks for the city to see how that will roll out.
The provincial government is also seeing green with a one-time payment of $30 million to stimulate the labour force. The Premier said she would like to use the money to get laid-off oil and gas workers back to work.
“This is money that we've been strongly advocating for over the past few weeks and months, we will leverage this money to put more resource to putting Albertans back to work and reclaiming orphan wells,” said Rachel Notley.
Ottawa is also promising to address the shortage of federal judges in Alberta and the Yukon. Last week, the province pledged to hire more prosecutors in order to deal with court backlogs.
