Welfare Air Program Takes Off

Dawson Creek, B.C. | BCBusiness
B.C.’s new Welfare Air program will send welfare recipients to booming cities such as Dawson Creek in northern parts of the province to be trained for industry jobs.

A provincial program sending welfare recipients to northern parts of the province to work high-paying jobs has officially launched.

While most of us who follow provincial politics never thought it would get off the ground, B.C.’s newest program to get welfare recipients working has launched.
 
Unofficially dubbed “Welfare Air” by critics, the pilot program called Job Match will fly welfare recipients (and some drawing employment insurance) to remote areas in northern B.C. to train and place them in high-paying industry positions.
 
One of our own bloggers wrote about the proposed program when it was first floated back in March and was doubtful the plan would ever reach fruition. But the province pledged $2.9 million in funding for the pilot program, which they expect will help 250 people find work in areas such as Dawson Creek, Fort St. John and Fort Nelson.
 
As of late last week, the program had already recruited 60 per cent of the first crop of 250 participants.
 
And it seems as if politicians are already counting these chickens before they’ve even hatched — Minister of Jobs Pat Bell hopes to take the program provincewide by sometime next year.
 
The province is touting this program as a more “individualized” approach to job placement. But as our blogger pointed out back in March, some welfare recipients who will be targeted in this program aren’t jobless because they’re lazy. Some have physical and mental health issues that prove to be an insurmountable barrier to employment. A program that doesn’t take these kinds of serious health issues into account sounds like a one-size-fits-all solution to me.