Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer the hon. member's question. I remind him he was a member of the administration in the previous government and he would know the stay in school
program was funded by the previous government only for a five-year time limit. It was sunsetted after five years.
I extended it for an additional year in order to give us time to work with various private sector and community organizations to enable them to pick up the program. As a result of that extension we have been able to negotiate a number of agreements.
I am very pleased to announce we now have agreement with the new National Basketball Association franchises in Vancouver and Toronto which have continued to encourage the stay in school program as part of their community involvement. We now have the program continuing through the auspices of various important initiatives by the National Basketball Association and other community sponsors.