Indigenous 
Written by Valerie Closs, Yvonne Lauzon, and Yvonne Brown, COJG Program Officers
St. Lawrence College Employment Service in Kingston and Ottawa have been working with the Canada-Ontario Job Grant (COJG) program and have administered 450 applications and disbursed over $2.5 million in support of employee training. These funds are directed primarily toward local small businesses (under 100 employees).
Created in 2015, the COJG program provides opportunities for employers to invest in their workforce. Funding is provided by the Government of Canada and delivered by the Government of Ontario through Employment Ontario. Employers may receive financial support to purchase training for their employees and up to $10,000 in government support per person for eligible training costs.
Hear what local employers say about SLC Employment Service:
Jewish Family Services of Ottawa
"On behalf of Jewish Family Services of Ottawa, I wish to share with you our appreciation of the COJG Program and specifically of the work of Yvonne Lauzon as a program officer. Yvonne has been a pleasure to work with. Her responsiveness, ongoing support and clarity of communication had made the COJG Program far more accessible to JFS. Thanks to Yvonne and the program, we were able to enhance our workforce capacity in a way we could not have done on our own. We already recommended this program to a few of our community partners."
- Michael Gershuny, Director of Counselling and Mental Health
Experiences Canada
"I have worked with St. Lawrence College for obtaining grant support for staff learning to use our complex database system. The staff at the College have been very professional in their support during the application process, ensuring that instructions are clear, and making the application process easy to follow and able to complete on a timely basis. As a NFP, having access to these funds to support this learning need for staff has been very beneficial."
- Ellen Glouchkow, Director of Finance and Administration
Crossroads Truck & Career Academy
"When the COJG program was first presented to Crossroads Truck & Career Academy in 2018, we were enthusiastic, but skeptical; the program seemed too good to be true. We found that employers were feeling the same way about the program, they wanted to know what the 'catch' was. Fast forward to today, we have assisted more than 20 different employers access the program and have provided commercial driver training to over 90 students, no "catch" just a great program. We have seen our long-term care facility clients access our personal support worker program through COJG. A big thank you to Yvonne and Yoko of St. Lawrence Employment Centre for helping us navigate the program in early days and their continued support to us and our clients."
- Ken Adams, Director of Operations
National Farmers Union
"The Capacity Training provided by the Canada-Ontario Job Grant helped me grow as an Executive Director. I participated in a six-month Capacity Building Training course for Executive Directors in the environmental sector. Through the course, I learned new management skills, fundraising ideas, and ways to engage my board. I also learned about different funding opportunities to hire interns and am happy to report that six interns are starting at the National Farmers Union on Monday [November 1, 2021]. These are young farmers who will be working on the off-farm fall and winter season developing a wide range of skills. They would not have had this great full-time seasonal employment opportunity if I hadn't taken the Capacity Building Training course."
- Mara Shaw, Executive Director