Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister, who announced that the federal government would withdraw from manpower training, did not keep his promise.
By tabling a proposal that offers even less than the proposal made to the government of Quebec in June 1994 and dismissed out of hand by Daniel Johnson, Ottawa has again shown its inability to acknowledge the consensus in Quebec on the need for transferring the authority and resources for manpower training to that province.
From now on, the minister will be able to impose national standards if the provinces want federal funding, and if they do not accept Ottawa's standards, the minister will be able to go over the heads of the provinces and offer these programs directly to the unemployed.
It is now obvious why the minister waited until after the referendum to table his reforms.