Ottawa charities say federal grants to hire summer students have dried up

Parkdale Food Centre executive director Beth Ciavaglia says the centre usually gets funding for eight summer students. This year it got none. Photo by Jean Levac /PostmediaArticle content

The administrators of two local charities were shocked when they learned the Canada Summer Jobs Program grants they had relied on had dwindled or disappeared completely.

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Children at Risk, a non-profit that assists families of youth on the autism spectrum, has received Canada Summer Jobs grants for its summer day camp program, Camp Kaleidoscope.

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The amount of funding received has varied widely. The camp opened in 2011 and six years later first got Summer Jobs funding from the program that offers wage subsidies for not-for-profit organizations and the public sector as well as businesses with 50 or fewer full-time workers.

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This year, Children at Risk executive director Brenda Reisch applied for more than 100 jobs, the same number approved in 2021 and 2022.

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In 2024, that number was reduced to 29 jobs, resulting in the smallest camp since it first opened in 2011. This year’s grant will cover the cost of hiring only seven counsellors and the camp is facing limiting families to one week each.

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“We’re trying to move ahead,” Reisch said. “It was discouraging to be hobbled by the lack of funding.”

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The news was even worse for the Parkdale Food Centre.

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It runs a food bank, a community kitchen, a youth program and an advocacy program. Over the past 10 years, the centre had consistently received funding for eight student jobs aimed at covering the roles of staff and volunteers who were on vacation, executive director Beth Ciavaglia said.

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“It wasn’t on the radar that they would say no,” she said. “They never said no before. We got nothing.”

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In an email dated May 12, Service Canada said it was unable to offer funding at this time.

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“Please note that, due to a high volume of applications and limited funding, not all projects could be funded. However, if funds become available, we will contact you to proceed with the next steps.”

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It will make a for a difficult summer, Ciavaglia said.

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“These students are crucial to us. We have a lot of volunteers, but only 12 staff. Volunteers take vacations, and the students allow us to run the programs and for staff to take vacation,” she said.

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“The food bank system is already strained. Now we’re down by eight positions.”

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If the picture is grim for charities, it’s just as grim for youth seeking summer employment, according to a report from the job search website Indeed.com.

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As of early May, Canadian summer job postings were down 22 per cent from 2024, said the report by Brendon Bernard, a senior economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, which focuses on the Canadian labour market.