Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this report.
One of the things that the government put in a budget two years ago would have done a lot to help youth unemployment, particularly in my riding of York South—Weston. We have the Central Ontario Building Trades in our riding, which runs the hammer heads program. It gives unemployed youth an opportunity to have a leg-up on apprenticeship programs, but requires that at the end of the 12-week training program that there be an apprenticeship job for them.
Two years ago, then finance minister Mr. Flaherty said that the government, as it spends infrastructure money, would encourage the contractors it hires to create apprenticeships to fulfill the need for student jobs in these programs. That was in the 2013 budget. To date, the government has not introduced any such motion or any such provision. In any of the budget implementation bills, there is no indication of that.
We have been asking the Government of Ontario, which is spending billions on infrastructure, to do the same thing. Thus far it has failed to provide a link between the infrastructure spending and apprenticeships.
Would the member like to comment on why the government has failed to introduce such legislation?