Madam Speaker, the budget reflects what we said we would do during the election. Let me look at some of the aspects of the budget which I find very, very positive and upon which we have already taken action in the last little while.
Looking at youth for instance, I know that earlier the member opposite from the Reform Party was talking about generation x . I have some 20 years of experience working with young people helping them deal with retraining and upgrading. The first aspect of this to look at is apprenticeship.
At a conference recently young people talked about making a decision by the time they hit grade 10. They said that is when they decide whether they are going to continue with post-secondary education or whether they are going to quit school. The latter means dead end jobs and not much of a future.
In this country we have never valued apprenticeships. In other countries apprenticeship is valued. In Germany there are 600,000 graduates a year. In other countries trades are not something blue collar workers do, but trades are considered as careers and professions and are valued by society.
In our culture we have not valued trades. We have not valued tradesmen and people with skills. We have devalued them. Therefore we have not built in infrastructures to be able to assist young people to go into apprenticeship programs or a trade if they choose not to go to an academic program at college or university.
We have built into the budget an apprenticeship program to deal with this very serious problem. It is a serious structural problem in our training and educational programs and affects the future of the young people of the country.
As a country it is time to join the rest of the world in making sure our young people have an option when they leave school. Those who do not want to go on with academic studies at university will have the option to follow a career. It is not just a make-shift program but offers a career in technology, in trades. It gives them the skills not only to get a job today but also to become the employers of tomorrow. In many other countries the artisans are the ones who create jobs in the small businesses.
By announcing an apprenticeship program in our budget we are talking about finally filling the gap and joining the rest of the world in the 21st century.
Another aspect deals with young people who have lost jobs. When the jobs go they are the first to go as they do not have the skills and are the most junior members of a company. There are also those young people who do not have the skills and have already dropped out and need assistance to get back into the labour market. We need to develop training programs and assistance for these young people.
Let us also look at the transition from school to work. Young people who have finished a training program or have obtained a college or university degree are unable to find jobs. Right now a lot of them are looking for work but do not have the experience. Quite often as many of us were told when we were looking for work they cannot get the job because they do not have the experience. They have not yet worked at or practised the trade they studied in school.
The Canada youth corps program which the government mentioned in its budget and which will be announced sometime soon by the Minister of Human Resources Development will try to address that problem. It will try to give young people at least a year of experience in the workplace so they can add those skills to their resumes when they go looking for work. That is very critical.
Traditionally we have not valued young people in the country. I know that sounds like a horrible thing to say and people will say it is not true. We value certain types but not others. In Ontario we have a 30 per cent dropout rate in the school system. That means 30 per cent of our young people after grade 10 have no skills, not much education and no hope of finding a job.
These are the things we are talking about in our budget. It is not just false hope, not just unrealistic plans we are making. The budget is very realistic, very credible and very practical in dealing with the real problems and solutions that today's economy requires and that we should have got into quite some time ago frankly.
The other aspect I want to get into is small businesses. We talk about jobs. All day today many members opposite have been talking about jobs. They do not develop automatically. We are in a recession.
Small businesses create many jobs but they need assistance. The budget directly addresses the problem of funding for small businesses. It addresses directly the problem with banks and the relationship of banks and the lending process. The budget deals with setting up structures to create an environment where the capital needed by small businesses to create jobs and to expand businesses and to invest is there.
The budget deals with innovative industries. It tries to ensure we can develop new technologies and bring them to market in this country making sure that it will also create jobs.
These are infrastructures this country needs badly and we need to work with. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said that this was a good budget and it was sensitive to the needs of small businesses. That is something we said we would do and something the budget addresses directly.
We have to create jobs but we also have to make sure this country's companies and industries are able to do that. Therefore we have to develop the environment that allows for that.
The infrastructure program has sometimes been reviled and criticized by the opposition. It is not a program that simply allows a few people to dig some ditches; it is a program that creates very serious jobs.
The construction industry has been devastated. Thousands of construction workers have not worked for three or four years at a time and have had to collect assistance. Now they will be able to work. Spinoff jobs will be created as a result of the infrastructure program. This again will stimulate the economy. It will get it going and will create some work and restore hope.
Finally, I want to make a point on some of the criticism I have heard about child care. We talk about jobs. We talk about young people. We talk about economic growth. But then, as some members opposite like to say: "But we must not spend money on child care". How can we assist parents and single parents who work part time or work nights in finding jobs or being retrained to enter the labour market if we do not provide support, subsidize or assist with day care? It is just not possible.
We are being totally unfair and not very honest with ourselves if we do not deal with the realities of the workplace. That demands support and assistance to families and to people who cannot get back into the workforce if they do not have that kind of support. Therefore criticism about additional moneys as was coming from the Reform Party a few minutes ago about child care is not acceptable. The budget tries to deal with that.
We are looking at trying to deal with some very complex problems in a very difficult time in our history but we need to address some of the structural problems. We need to deal with these problems. The budget tries to deal with them in a realistic way, taking into account the fact that there is not a lot of money around. That is true. We also need to deal with the deficit. But we are trying to deal with these things with some very practical solutions.
For my part I hope members opposite will find it important to support our young people, to support the small businesses and to support those parents who need the assistance to get back into the workforce.