I thought the idea was to create jobs

Not cut them.

As students are finding job prospects slim   and Harper is going around spending vast amounts of money on self-promotion, several organizations are suffering and will have to cut back on staffing since funding which they have received for decades is no longer coming and that probably won’t change.

The Bedeque Bay Environmental Management Association, along with 15 other Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) organizations, has learned Environment Canada's Atlantic region programs under the National Ecosystem Initiative, will not be ready for implementation in the 2010 fiscal year.  Currently there are no plans out of Ottawa to maintain conservation and environmental education in the Atlantic Region. Community programs such as BBEMA will wind down and critical youth employment opportunities will cease.

There’s problem number one: this government doesn’t feel environmental project are worth funding.

Problem number two is this government’s arrogance in wanting to control everything despite evidence that projects are best managed by experts and those who have been working on them for years.

"We've had great success but unfortunately, the way the money goes, BBEM and our sister organization Southeast Environmental Association are community-based organizations," (Tracy Brown, BBEMA executive director) said. "So our projects and what we do and how we react is driven by the community.  "The federal government is looking to go the other way . . . they want to be governing from the top down so they're the ones controlling where things go."

There is not much honesty in a stimulus push that create temporary construction jobs while existing ones are slashed, especially if they are part of effective programs such as those managed by ACAP.

We will be seeing more cuts such as these, especially in the public service with this government that thinks nothing is worth investing in unless it turns a buck for private businesses.  The cost to that path isn’t only jobs, it’s accountability, and the provision only of services that translate into big profits for private companies.