An Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency program that gives loans and training to young entrepreneurs for business start-up and expansion is alive and well, says David Harrigan, an ACOA spokesman.
"None of our programs have been cut," he said Tuesday.
An e-mail sent last week to Peter MacKay, the minister responsible for ACOA and copied to media outlets, suggested funding for the SEED program had been cut.
The author of the e-mail had applied for a $20,000 loan under the agency’s SEED Capital Program in the Halifax area and said she was told that all loan applications had been suspended "until further notice."
The SEED program provides repayable loans of $20,000 to those under 35 and is administered by the Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development in the Halifax area and Community Business Development Corporations around the province.
Now that the federal budget has come down, ACOA is in the process of negotiating annual contracts with all of the agencies that administer the SEED program, Mr. Harrigan said.
"The federal budget, for example, was only passed a week or so ago for the 2006 and 2007 fiscal year," he said. "We are not unlike any other federal department. We were not sure exactly what are allocations would be.
"We are now confident enough that we are now negotiating these individual contracts with those delivery agencies." ...
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