Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member who spoke about the great amount of jobs that had been created since the Liberal government took over. I beg to differ with him. If jobs have been created, it certainly has not been as a result of the federal government. Any jobs that have been created have been done through the private sector.
When will the government realize that governments do not create jobs? The best thing that governments have been able to create over the last many years is debt. If job creation programs instigated by parliaments were successful, everybody in Canada would have at least two jobs.
The other day I asked the Minister of Human Resources Development about changes in the delivery of the training programs. He said that we really should be transferring resources to the people, to the private sector and to communities. I would certainly like to see that. I applaud the minister for even thinking about transferring training to the private sector. That is a great leap in attitude for the Liberal government. I would like to see that come about.
In the private sector at least the training would be job specific. It would be specific to the marketplace. The marketplace would have some say in what sort of training should take place rather than having training programs that are supported for example under section 25 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, whereby moneys are allocated to very questionable job training prospects. When I ask about those specific projects that take place in our area, because I would like to have some feedback as to what kinds of permanent jobs have been created and how many people have become employed as a result of those projects, I get very little response. As a matter of fact, I am waiting to get some information as to how successful or unsuccessful those programs are.
I believe the Bloc has come up with a good motion. However, I do not believe it is specific to Quebec. We are talking about Canada. Of course the Bloc oftentimes only speaks about the province of Quebec. This is certainly relevant in my province of Alberta, as it is in la belle province. The Bloc would have had our support if the motion had not been strictly specific to Quebec.
The auditor general questioned the effectiveness of this program. This is not simply an idea the Reform Party has come up with or the Bloc has come up with. The auditor general stated in his report: "In studying programs that pumped about $4 billion into regional development over eight years, administrators often just added up the number of jobs the projects they funded were supposed to create and concluded that the programs had created those jobs". That is hardly the way to assess the effectiveness of the program.
There should be more accountability with respect to these programs.
It is noteworthy that there will be a rebate to people who are part-time employees. If they do not earn more than $2,000 their contributions will be refunded. However, the employee's contribution will not be refunded to the employee. That will have the reverse effect of what the Liberal government says will be a job incentive program. Anything that taxes the people who employ people will have a negative effect on the number of people who are employed. We should be doing more to remove payroll taxes. We should not be putting more roadblocks in the way of business, industry, and private enterprise. We should give them more of a break to ensure they become successful.
My dad used to say that when you work for somebody you have to make sure you make them a dollar or they could not possibly afford to pay you. That is something that may have escaped hon. members opposite.
Having looked at this motion, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville,
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after "sector".