Vital updates:

• The Ontario Government is investing $43 million in expanded youth training programs to give young people exposure to more employment options. The programs will help increase awareness and encourage youth to acquire the skills that will start them down the path to lifelong success while supporting Ontario’s economic recovery and future prosperity. The government’s investments to attract and train youth in the skilled trades include:
  • $5 million, an increase of $3.5 million, to Skills Ontario so they can increase awareness of the trades among elementary and secondary students.
  • $17 million, an increase of $2.3 million, in the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) to send representatives to schools to provide high school students with the opportunity to learn about work in the skilled trades, and/or train as apprentices while completing their Ontario Secondary School Diploma
  • $21 million in Ontario’s Pre-Apprenticeship Training program, giving students and graduates exposure to a variety of good jobs in the skilled trades. The program is free for participants and includes a work placement.
• In addition, Ontario is appointing three Youth Advisors to engage with youth, educators, business, parents and other key partners as well as the Minister of Labour Training and Skills Development on how to reduce stigma and make the trades a viable first choice for young people. They will advise on increasing awareness of the skilled trades among elementary school students, starting in grade one, with a focus on grades seven and eight, and on making it easier for high school students to learn about the options in the trades and to begin an apprenticeship pathway while continuing to earn secondary school credits.
• The Governments of Canada and Ontario are providing more than $5.4 million through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership to help food processing businesses improve food safety, increase labour productivity and enable better access markets. These strategic investments will support more than 75 projects across Ontario and strengthen the province’s crucial agri-food supply chain. A list of approved projects is available here.  The Partnership is also investing in programs this year at provincially inspected dairy processors and provincially licensed meat processors to support food safety enhancement projects. These are in addition to new programming launched this year, like the Agri-food Workplace Protection Program, to assist the sector in protecting its workers from the COVID-19 outbreak.
• Elections Canada has announced new administrative changes to the way that Canadian elections will be run during the COVID-19 pandemic, including physical distancing measures, masks, and single-use pencils at polling stations, increasing the capacity of the vote-by-mail system, and removing Vote on Campus options. Elections Canada will also recommend that Parliament adopt further changes, including opening polling for two weekend days instead of one weekday. Internet voting was not considered on the grounds that there was not sufficient time to design, test, and implement a system offering satisfactory confidentiality, secrecy, reliability and integrity.

Reading recommendations:

• Four scenarios on how we might develop immunity to Covid-19, Helen Branswell, Stat
• Canadian housing showing strength, but not all markets are firing equally, Haider-Moranis Bulletin, Murtaza Haider,  Stephen Moranis, Financial Post