Michelle Mungall: Employment Program

employment program: The non-profit society PEERS was forced to close its centre and cancel an employment program after years of complicated funding restructuring that included a new fee-for-service model. The new billing system required that PEERS provide detailed personal information for its services, even though the society worked to support sex workers unconditionally and protect their confidentiality. , according to Times Colonist. Mungall and Esquimalt-Royal Roads MLA Maurine Karagianis sent a letter to Don McRae, minister of social development and social innovation, this week, urging him to meet with PEERS to come up with a solution. The recent closing of a drop-in centre that provided safe, non-judgmental services for sex trade workers in Victoria might be the first casualty among specialized employment programs struggling to fit into a rigid new provincial case management system, critics warn. The extra administrative work and loss of privacy has raised concerns in the employment services sector that other programs for vulnerable groups might have to close, said Michelle Mungall, the MLA for Nelson-Creston and opposition critic for social development. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.