OTTAWA — The federal website advertising volunteer positions for students hoping to earn money for their educations through a $900-million government aid program contains hundreds — if not thousands — of positions that might not actually exist.
Among the student-volunteer positions advertised as available on the I Want to Help website are 1,500 spots with YMCA Canada to help create online exercise regimes for kids and seniors in their communities.
The YMCA says those positions were the brainchild of WE Charity, the organization originally tapped by the Liberal government to administer the Canada Student Services Grant, and that the Y never agreed to host them.
The YMCA and WE both blame a miscommunication as WE scrambled to get the program — through which students can earn up to $5,000 toward their schooling — up and running as quickly as possible.
Yet neither WE nor the federal government have responded to repeated questions about thousands of other positions ostensibly involving the creation of online content or the mentoring other students for which no charity or non-profit is named.
The YMCA, meanwhile, says it is still waiting to hear about 391 other student-volunteer positions that it is ready to host but that have still not been posted on the federal website.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2020.
The Canadian Press
