Kinew vows funds for former in-care kids

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/08/2017 (2978 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NDP leadership candidate Wab Kinew is promising $3.2 million in new funding aimed primarily at former children in care who want a post-secondary education.

Kinew was a senior administrator at the University of Winnipeg when he helped launch the Kids in Care tuition-waiver program several years ago, he said Wednesday.

“Kids were allowed to come to the university free of charge,” he said. “Many turned out to be high achievers.”

However, the program, which has since spread to universities and colleges across Manitoba, was limited because all of the funds had to be raised privately.

The Fort Rouge MLA didn’t say how many students his pledge would help each year.

Kinew said as a future NDP premier he would cover $4,500 a year for tuition and books for students who had aged out of care, and promised an additional $6,300 for any student who subsequently graduated, as a wage subsidy to help them get their first job.

“We would have free tuition and books for kids aging out of the child welfare system — it’s a transformative intervention,” he said.

Kinew said he didn’t know how many people turn 18 and leave the child-welfare system each year.

The number of students helped would be limited by the schools’ ability to provide “intensive tutoring support” and academic advisers to academically qualified candidates, he said.

Kinew said the package would cost about $1.2 million a year. He said there are currently about 150 former children in care enrolled in post-secondary programs.

An NDP government would also spend $2 million annually to create a task force of students, educators and employers to create 1,000 jobs a year for new graduates. The province would fund one-third of the employers’ costs for the first three months, he said.

Kinew and former cabinet minister Steve Ashton will face off for the leadership at a Sept. 16 convention.

Kinew would not comment Wednesday on Ashton’s endorsement by Eric Robinson, a former cabinet minister and the most prominent Indigenous MLA during the NDP’s four majority governments.

“What I’m focusing on is renewing the party… people who are going to win the next time around,” he said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca