Mr. Chair, I don't think we should support this motion, for a number of reasons. First of all, it seems to me that this is just going to prolong the partisan games around this program. We've had a number of motions around this program already. We as government have agreed to those previous motions to provide the information the opposition has asked for. This is just another motion to prolong the circus around the games being played around this program.
What we did was quite simple. We did two things to the program as it was previously constituted. The first thing we did was remove the funding for for-profit corporations. We did not believe that for-profit corporations such as Wal-Mart and the like should receive government funding, so we removed that element of the program. That constituted approximately $10 million of the program. That part of the program was removed. The funding that was in place for not-for-profits remained fully intact.
The second thing we did for the program—and this was based on very good public policy, based on the best advice we have received—was that we were going to target the program to areas of the country in which there were higher than average crime rates, higher than average unemployment, a higher proportion of the population that was from minority groups, whether that be linguistic minority groups or other minority groups, and there was a whole grid on which we evaluated these applications. As a result, regions of the country that had higher scores with respect to these social outcomes received more money, and regions of the country where there were lower scores with respect to these social outcomes received less money. That was the change in the program. It is based on very sound and very good public policy.
The Montreal Gazette recently had an editorial on this, saying the Tories took the right tack on the Canada summer jobs program:
The previous program gave local MPs far too much say over who in their ridings got money to hire summer students, a system that was ripe for abuse. The Tories instead devised a complex grid system administered by civil servants to decide who got the cash, and gave priority to jobs related to a student's field of study and to students who would otherwise have difficulty finding a job.
I think one of the things we have realized in the last week or so is that in many cases not-for-profit organizations that had long received money, that had not yet heard back from the government, were wondering what was going on. So the minister indicated in the House that the funding had not all yet been allocated and that there was going to be a second tranche of funding, and he has acted on it. In the last week or so, many of the not-for-profit organizations that in previous years have received money have found out that they are going to receive money in the second round of funding.
We have reacted to the situation. We have addressed it. The minister has been extremely competent and attentive in this regard.
I think that when all the facts are presented, we have acted appropriately, and I don't think we should introduce another motion that would see the deputy minister and other officials come in front of committees so that we can have another circus around this, when in fact the program is based on sound public policy, and furthermore, in the last week or so, the department has announced a second wave of funding that has addressed some of the concerns the member raised in the House and has raised here in front of the committee.