We need to further address the fact that the youth clearly aren't attached yet because they haven't had the opportunity. We have a huge crisis with what we call our transition youth, who are transitioning from school--or maybe they haven't even completed high school--and looking to move into the workplace and/or full-time post-secondary education. Our big problem is that particular stream of funding has completely dried up.
I have a contract that was completely approved to support transition youth, but it's sitting on a desk due to lack of funding. Funding has stopped, and no new project has been funded by Service Canada in the HRM for transition youth since October 2005. This is really a crisis in terms of our youth options. There's the LMP as you mentioned, and then you attach the fact that all these transition youth have nowhere to go.
At one time Service Canada was extremely supportive of transition youth. Here in the HRM, which I can address, we had some incredible programs that were incredibly successful, with over a 93% retention rate for youth in their first jobs. These are real programs that were successful and are now completely shut down simply because, although approved in principle, they never received financing.