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ROBERT
T. CHISHOLM - DIFFICULTIES WITH ACCESSING THE "ON-SITE" RE-TRAINING
AND JOB PLACEMENT PROGRAM
GENERAL.
I have had nothing but
trouble with this, ever since I first found out about the program back in 1989,
by chance, whilst I was still living in Montreal.
The ON-SITE program
began in Ottawa in 1983. It was originally conceived for the dual purposes of
helping unemployed professionals - such as environmental engineers, chemists
and managers - get back to work, and to help private sector organisations solve
their waste and energy management problems. It is funded by H.R.D.C., but is
managed by a private consulting firm called Energy Pathways Inc. who are based
in Ottawa.
In early 1998, the coverage
of the ON-SITE program was extended to include placements for information
technology professionals.
In late 2006 the federal
government decided to transfer all responsibility for worker re-training to the
provinces, effective from January 1st 2007. One result of this has
been the winding-down of the ON-SITE program. However it has since been
replaced by precisely equivalent provincial programs. In Ontario, for instance,
it is now the Ontario Job Creation Partnerships program; it works precisely as
the former ON-SITE program did, with precisely the same eligibility
requirements for people wanting to use it.
This is a snapshot of
Energy Pathways Inc.s web site as at December 15th, 2006. CLICK
HERE
Click the BACK button in your web browser to come back here
after viewing it.
Two
of the major difficulties with the program were (a) very small numbers of
places available relative to demand and (b) only available to people receiving
regular E.I. (U.I. before July 1st 1996) benefits, plus Reach-Back
E.I. clients from July 1st 1996. The Reach-Back
provision allowed people to enter the program up to 3 years after their regular
E.I. benefits had expired, or 5 years for some people such as mothers who had
temporarily left the work force to start a family. More information: CLICK HERE
PARTICULAR INSTANCES
OF TROUBLE
On this site I have described
several instances of problems with H.R.D.C. barring me from ON-SITE in detail
and have included all the supporting documents
There have in my case been five
stories of my being refused admission to this, or other difficulties, i.e.:-
a) 1989 /
90
(b) 1992
/ 93
(c) 1994
/ 96
(d)
1998 / 1999
(e) 2001 onwards
WITH RESPECT TO (a) - 1989 / 90
Briefly,
I had found out about the ON-SITE program, following a phone call to Energy
Pathways office in Ottawa. They were just one of a large number of names on my
list to call, when I started looking for work in Ottawa shortly after I got
married.
At
the time, I was living in Montreal (since arriving from the U.K. in 1982, to
work for SNC) but had found it to be hopelessly corrupt and devoid of any
satisfactory opportunity in professional engineering, which was what I had come
to Canada to do; I was working on my own as a self-employed house painter and
decorator.
The
then-President of Energy Pathways, whom I found myself talking to - Mr. Brian Barstead – asked me if I would
like a copy of their company brochure; naturally, I replied in the affirmative
and thanked him for the information.
I
received it a few days later. That is when I found out about ON-SITE, which had
in fact started in Ottawa in 1983; it became available in Montreal in 1987.
The
problem then was lack of insurable weeks excluding me from the program.
After taking the problem up with local Employment and Immigration Canada
office, the Montreal Gazette newspaper (which refused to
publicize anything about it) and the office of the then Minister of Employment
and Immigration – Barbara MacDougall – nothing whatsoever was done about the
situation
Details
to follow – under construction.
Shortly
after moving to Ottawa in 1991, I got a 6 month less a day term
employment position, painting and decorating at a large military hospital, the
National Defence Medical Centre. This was arranged partly with the help of an
Employment and Immigration Canada – Nadia Iadinerdi – who informed me about it,
and in time for me to do the written
exam for the Ontario painter and decorator s licence which was one of the
requirements for getting the position.
The idea
was that by taking this job, I could establish eligibility for Unemployment
Insurance benefits and hence ON-SITE, after finishing the 6-month contract.
This seemed the obvious way to get back into my profession – mechanical
engineering. So I went ahead and did it; the job went without a hitch.
Then I
enrolled in the ON-SITE program, on the basis that they would find a suitable
appointment for me based on information I had provided them. At the same time,
during my previous 10 years unemployment in my profession as a mechanical
engineer, I had missed out on a significant amount of published engineering
literature. So then I set to work getting up-dated, which was a fairly long job
but I was able to use the facilities at CISTI to do it.
(CISTI =
Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, a department of the
National Research Council located at the main campus in Ottawa)
But this
did not work, because no ON-SITE placement ever came through before my
Unemployment Insurance benefits ran out.
At the
time, my wife and I owned a property in Montreal (bought partly with the aid
of a small inheritance from my mother
who died in 1986), so I took the problem up initially with federal Montreal M.P. Allan Khoury. Mr.
Khoury eventually brought it to the attention of the then–Minister of
Employment and Immigration, Bernard Valcourt, but without any result. So then I
took it this up, along with other concerns (about corruption involving the engineering
firm SNC in Montreal), with Ottawa federal M.P. Beryl Gaffney – again without
any result.
1992 / 1993 –
DETAILS - CLICK
HERE
WITH RESPECT TO (c)
- 1994 / 96 :-
This was arguably the most serious. It all happened
before the Reach–Back program came into effect, on July 1st 1996.
I was forced to leave a
painting and decorating job after 17 weeks because the employer – Deans
Professional Painting, in Ottawa – was in arrears with my wages to the extent
of 5 weeks (about $2000) and appeared to be heading for bankruptcy.
To cut a long story short,
I was initially refused Unemployment
Insurance benefits on account of lack
of insurable weeks but on appeal to the Board of Referees and then the
Umpire, I was awarded 17 weeks of
benefits but not admitted to ON-SITE. In particular, I blame Board of
Referees President R. Presseault and lawyer Jonathan P. Langsner
(H.R.D.C. Legal Services department) for what happened.
Jonathan P. Langsner
became involved when I started dealing directly with the Umpire s office
– i.e. the Federal Court of Canada –
following the initial decision in my favour. Mr. Langsner used
legalistic sophistry and lies to pretend that I could not be admitted to
ON-SITE. Additionally, his action and that of others, apart from other
things, amounted to their using public money to stop me from contributing to
the tax base.
This conduct, documented on
this web site, amounted to perjury and incompetence. ON THESE
GROUNDS, I DEMAND THE REMOVAL OF MR.
LANGSNER FROM HIS EMPLOYMENT AND HIS EXPULSION FROM THE LEGAL PROFESSION, FOR
PERJURY AND INCOMPETENCE.
1994 / 1996 - SUMMARY AND FULL REPORT - CLICK HERE
WITH RESPECT TO (d) -1998 /
99
This was
as bad but in different ways.
The
problems started just after I had finished a computer programming course at
Willis College of Business & Technology, in June 1998. Co-Ops were proving
difficult or impossible to get, for me and others, because of the lack of
available placements with local companies relative to need. ON-SITE seemed to
me to be the way out of this difficulty. In early 1998, it was recommended to
me and others by one of the instructors at Willis College of Business &
Technology, because the program had just been expanded to include placements
for unemployed IT professionals.
Briefly, it involved
H.R.D.C. officials initially approving me for the ON-SITE program, in early
June 1998, but then changing their minds two weeks later without even telling
me officially (I was left to find it out by accident). The problem was never
resolved, because of what can only be described as stone-walling,
obfuscation and time-wasting by H.R.D.C. officials during 1998 and 1999 - and
former Minister of H.R.D.C. Pierre Pettigrew in particular.
This is a
major reason why I had still not got satisfactory work, nearly
5 years after graduating from the Visual Software Developer course at
Willis College of Business and Technology.
1998/1999 - DETAILS - CLICK HERE
WITH RESPECT TO (e)
- 2001 onwards
Currently,
as a result of 10 months work at JDS Uniphase ending with my layoff in April
2001, under the present rules I was still eligible for an ON-SITE placement
until about February 2005. The problem since I was laid off from JDS Uniphase
has been a lack of suitable opportunities - even when I have approached
employers to persuade them to use the ON-SITE program if they employ me. There
seems to be a very serious problem involving small-c conservative
employer attitudes, possibly connected with the general state of the job
market.
In the
case of Suncor in Alberta, where I am particularly interested in working, the
problem involved ON-SITE having become unavailable there since August 21st 2002
or earlier. Additionally, I applied for an engineering position at Suncor in
August 2002 at which time I KNEW they had just started
recruitment campaigns in South Africa and the U.K. - based on an alleged shortage of suitable people in Canada. (Reference: National Post, August 19th
2002).
I took the
problem up with the office of The Hon.
Jane Stewart, then Minister of Human Resources Development and with Suncor –
but with no result.
The
problem is still un-resolved at this time (May 2008).