The presentation by Bill Dennis was excellent and as he pointed out the Government programs are constantly changing.
If not noted to those interested in the above program for those interested in self-employment the program has bean cancelled as of Oct 7, 2009
Here is the message from Laurie LeBlanc Assistant Minister Employment and training Division: " This year Employment Ontario has seen unprecedented number of clients applying for all of its programs. Due to extreme levels of demand, we are unfortunately no longer able to accept new applications to OSEB at this time."
I was one of those ready to present my plan on Oct 9 so my plan and all the work with is is out the window.. Boy if they diverted some of the I-HEALTH FUNDS
for unemployed people of Ontario we might help to bring the unemployment numbers down.
Thanks for posting it for to benefit
Thanks
Lynn Cirjak
I applied for the program over 2 months ago. I worked on my business plan for 4 months before that. I have 6 months invested in this program just to find out the gov has cut the funding. I called Community Futures for an update on my application and they informed me of the freeze. I can’t help but wonder if anyone would have contacted me to let me know.
My EI runs out in December and we just had our first child on Nov. 30. This is such a kick in the face.
I understand in these economic times there being more applicants than usual. But what I don’t understand is, I thought the government had just injected all this extra funding into programs exactly like this as part of their economic action plan.
I am so extremely frustrated.
hello,
Thank you for the great quality of your blog, each time i come here, i’m amazed.
black hattitude.
The owners of the big construction and road paving companies are having a very good year. That is were all the stimulus money is flowing.
I am beyond frustrated with all this as well. Here is the letter that I wrote in response to my denial.
I regretfully received the letter stating that my application would not be processed for the SEB Program. My application was sent in on September 18th, and I was told the cut off date was October 7th. I believe that my application deserves to be processed. I have put 4 months work into my application, having to put my child in daycare so that I could carry out the meetings with the CDC, Sault Jobs Canada, work on my business plan, do market research and gather my letters of support. I feel very angry that I put in all this effort, and no one has had the courtesy to even tell me if my business idea was just, let alone process my application. I have held back clients and advertising, so that I didn’t jeopardize the eligibility of my application. I am beyond frustrated as now I have no job to turn to and no support to get my business off the ground. My business idea was excellent, but without your financial assistance my dream is lost.
I understand that you may be processing applications again in the future, but I am very concerned, that in the future I may not meet the eligability criteria.
I am putting in some phone calls today to my members of parliament, as I do not feel that my application was handled fairly, given the time it was submitted, compared to your cut of date of October 7th.
From what i’m understanding, the provinces were given the option of handling SEB programs on their own, the Federal governenment handed them funds from EI for them to distribute as they chose. They were given no guidelines.
One would have to assume if this was the only province this has occured in, the Ontario government mismanaged this funding, or applied it to a different program, and short changed those for whom it was intended for, as no other province has stopped funding, nor any province that is still governed by the federal program.
As this was done very quietly, I would hope enough people would speak up about this and get a watchdog to investigate where this funding was spent.
We would have been much better if this was left in the Federal governments control.
I dont know if anyone is still checking these comments, but I just wanted to post a correction. The OSEB program is not cancelled. It is still running. I got in July 2011, and completed the program in April 2012. It’s very much active at my local center in Markham and they’re still running their weekly orientation, which means still accepting new members. I think it is run by the Ontario Ministry of Training now. I have a linkedin group for anyone interested in SEB. http://tinyurl.com/9bvz7ct
Check it out and join!