Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. member that since the October 25 election this government has worked very hard to bring about positive change in the lives of young people here.
I am happy to report to the House that the unemployment rate for young people has decreased from 17.5 per cent in 1993 to 16.4 per cent in August. This is a result of 20,000 new jobs that were created for youth and 29,000 young Canadians were no longer unemployed. This is just part of a package.
The summer employment strategy for young people created approximately 60,000 jobs to give young people the skills required to be competitive in a very different world.
We also moved quickly on the youth service Canada lead-sites. Seventy-five per cent of the 67 lead-sites are fully operational. We expect that the others will be operational shortly.
We have also moved in the area of youth internship and apprenticeship training programs because we recognize as a government that we do live in an era where young people must be given tools to be competitive in a very competitive world marketplace.
We have not forgotten of course the importance of staying in school and through our stay in school initiative with a budget of approximately $31.5 million, we expect to assist over 10,000 young people through direct interventions this year, not to take lightly our contribution made to the Canada Student Loans.
A review took place and there again positive change to the legislation resulted in greater accessibility to funding for young people so that they could access post-secondary education. We as a government understand that higher education is necessary for us to compete.
As members know, above and beyond that young people will be an integral component of social security review. I am sure the hon. member and his party will participate fully in this very historical event.