Sasamat camp’s summer jobs funding was cut in half, director tells House of Commons committee

Sasamat Outdoor Centre was a few months from getting the canoes in the water for their 2023 summer camps when they were informed their subsidy would be cut by about $75,000.

The outdoor centre, which offers activities like archery, rock climbing and shelter building for campers between the ages of 4 and 15, typically receives a subsidy from the Canada Summer Jobs program, according to Sasamat Outdoor Centre operations manager Ben Quinn.

“This year, we were hit with another financial hurdle when we received our funding from Canada summer jobs, it was, unexpectedly, less than half of what we had received in the previous year and about half of what our average funding amount has been in the last five years,” Quinn said.

The non-profit organization tends to employ 40 to 50 young workers. The subsidy usually covers the wages for about 25-30 of those workers, according to Quinn.

By the time they found out their funding had been cut, it was too late to make big operational changes, Quinn said during a House of Commons committee on human resources held in October.

“Now we have to find a way to absorb that cost,” Quinn told the committee. “That means finding other funding or finding ways to raise fees for service.”

Those cuts can directly impact campers, he said.

Port Moody-Coquitlam MP Bonita Zarrillo, who said she had the unpleasant task of informing the organization about the funding cut, told Quinn the decision seemed abrupt.

“We didn’t even know, as members of Parliament, until days before that this was happening,” Zarrillo said during the meeting.

The Canada Summer Jobs program is a federal subsidy designed to create quality summer work for people between the ages of 15 and 30.

The program is essential for offsetting costs and keeping camps “affordable and accessible to as many families as possible,” Quinn said.

While Quinn said he was grateful for the program, he added that it has certain limits.

Moving forward, Quinn said advance notice about funding would help the camp find workers instead of having to make “conditional offers” to potential employees early in the year.

“Where Canada Summer Jobs does not help a summer camp is the rest of the year,” he said.

If the grant could be applied to camps held outside of summer, it would be: “incredible for camps across this entire country.”

Quinn also noted that many camps run a 35-40 hour training program for staffers which is not supported by the subsidy.