Quebec premier takes heat for paying students to ‘renovate their basement’

The Quebec authorities is facing disapproval for a programme that paid students to larn a operation accomplishment — arsenic little than fractional the graduates are certified to enactment successful the industry.

After it was precocious revealed the programme fell acold abbreviated of its target, Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon connected Tuesday accused the authorities of creating an “all-inclusive, all-paid package” that students tin usage “to spell and renovate (their) cottage oregon renovate (their) basement.”

Last fall, Quebec Premier François Legault announced a new, $300-million fast-track programme to bid betwixt 4,000 and 5,000 caller operation workers, successful an effort to code an ongoing labour shortage. Students are paid $750 a week to be accelerated grooming programs lasting 4 to six months.

But the programme doesn’t see a request to enactment successful the manufacture aft graduation, and astir 1 twelvemonth later, Quebec’s operation committee reports that conscionable 1,251 of the program’s graduates are moving successful construction, including 1,017 who are caller to the industry.

To date, 3,329 students person registered for the fast-track program, and 2,551 person graduated with a diploma, according to the bureau of Labour Minister Jean Boulet. That means little than fractional of graduates person been certified by the operation committee to enactment successful the field.

In Quebec’s legislature connected Tuesday, Legault defended the program, saying the “vast majority” of students volition extremity up moving successful construction. But helium acknowledged determination are “a fewer radical who took the accidental to instrumentality courses without having the volition of moving successful the industry.”

A spokesperson for Boulet confirmed that incoming students present person to taxable a screen missive to beryllium their involvement successful the field.

Trending Now

St-Pierre Plamondon connected Tuesday called the programme a “fiasco” from a “spendthrift” authorities that “lacks rigour and preparation.”

Liberal Leader Marc Tanguay said it was a “poorly designed programme that caused millions (of dollars) successful waste.”

However, Boulet’s bureau said graduates person until December 2025 to get certificates from the commission, meaning the existent numbers aren’t final. And workers don’t person to beryllium certified for each benignant of operation work.

“A idiosyncratic carrying retired residential renovations does not request to get a enactment licence to bash their job,” the committee said successful a statement.

The fast-track program, which launched successful January, was meant to boost numbers of 5 types of operation workers: carpenters, dense instrumentality operators, excavator operators, tinsmiths and refrigeration engineers. The archetypal cohort finished their studies successful April.

On Tuesday, Legault said it was “too aboriginal to measure the results” of the operation program. “We’ve been capable to instrumentality programs quickly, without excessively overmuch bureaucracy,” helium said. “Let’s beryllium cautious earlier throwing retired immoderate numbers.”