Dear Editor:
Re: City MP blasts Tories for axing Katimavik, The Record, April 11. Thank you to MP Fin Donnelly for taking the heritage minister to task for his "cavalier" attitude in cutting the youth program Katimavik, and kudos to The Record for deeming the issue important enough to merit a headline.
I was a Katimavik participant in 1983/84 and, as others have said, found it to be life-changing. At the time, I was told it cost the Canadian government $12,000 for each participant enrolled in the program. The same criticisms were levied against the program then as now: "It's too expensive. Why should taxpayers pay for a bunch of kids to go travelling around the country?"
These naysayers are seldom moved by the warm, fuzzy intangible benefits such as fostering national unity, fostering a sense of community, instilling volunteerism and social contribution, teaching life skills, preparing young people for the workforce, etc., etc. They are "bottom line" folks and who want to know the economic benefits.
So here is a real-life example. Here is how Canada benefitted economically from my Katimavik experience, and here is why it is fiscally irresponsible to cut such a program.
Before Katimavik, the only time I thought about Canada's North was in geography class when they spoke of the Arctic and protecting Canadian sovereignty. Having lived in New Westminster all my life, I was shocked and unprepared when Katimavik sent me to Haines Junction, Yukon - population 350 at the time. I laugh now when I think back to my arrival in July armed with a sleeping bag that went to minus 26!
To make a long story short, I fell in love with the Yukon and, after the program ended, continued to return to the Yukon as a seasonal worker for eight consecutive summers. The work was plentiful and lucrative, enabling me to pay for entire degree without any student loans or government assistance.
Further spinoffs of my involvement with the North include my parents making three road trip pilgrimages, five friends also becoming seasonal workers returning year after year, and yet another eight choosing to vacation there. It is noteworthy that one of the seasonal workers became a permanent resident, raising a family and contributing to the Yukon for 20-plus years.
That is just my story. Of the 12 participants in my group (none of whom had any familiarity with the North prior to Katimavik) three others chose to return and make it their permanent residence. Yes, 28 years later they are still there! How does one measure those benefits? And that is over and above the $224,000 equivalent of free labour quoted in your news article that poured into the host community.
I am not an accountant or a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Finance, but I think the Yukon economy and those of the towns en route were stimulated and bolstered by this activity.
I believe the Canadian taxpayers got their $12,000 investment in me, as well as the others participants in my group, back ten-fold.
Kim Deighton, by Email
