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Castor Administration has concerns about the status of the Canada Summer Jobs Grant

The grant has yet to open for the 2020 applications
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By Kevin J. Sabo

For the Advance

Town of Castor administration has some serious concerns about the status of the federal government Canada Summer Jobs grant.

The grant, which usually opens the call for applications in December and runs through to February, has yet to open for the 2020 applications.

On the official government of Canada web site, there is a notice that the call for applications will be ‘available soon,’ yet all other information on the web site is from the 2019 intake.

CAO Christopher Robblee told council during their Jan. 13th meeting that without the grant, there will have to be some changes for the summer 2020 plans, including dropping summer hires by two which would have an impact on all parts of the Town’s summer program.

With the decrease in numbers, the summer students who are hired would primarily be cutting grass, and the pool could see reduced hours if staff are cut there.

“There would be no more projects, they would just cut grass,” said Robblee.

“The pool would also be closed more if we pulled someone from the pool.”

Another victim of the grant’s loss would be Camp Beaver Tail, the popular summer program that has run for the last couple of years, first in the curling rink in the summer of 2018 and out of the newly renovated Beaverdome in 2019.

“It usually opens by now, and ends in February,” said Robblee. “It should have been open weeks ago.”

The Town of Castor typically hires 10 summer staff for the pool, and six in public works, though some would transition to the summer camp as the need arose.

No decisions were made during the council meeting about the summer programming as it yet remains to be seen if the calls for funding will open.

Whichever way the funding issue falls, there will be an impact felt in the community, council was told.